The ET Atari legend is true! Who woulda thunk it?
Creeperbane2
Victorian ScoundrelIndianapolis, IN Icrontian
in Gaming
The ET Atari legend is true! Who woulda thunk it? Discuss
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There were people who thought this was not true?
There are people that think the moon landing was a hoax... there's people that think Scientology is totally legit.... believe me, you can get always get some people to believe ANYTHING.
I never quite bought it on the grounds of "How could they be so stupid as to NOT think this stinker was DOA"
And how is this video of a guy playing Castlevania proof of anything at all?
I remember when the games market tanked about early 84 or so. I remember walking into a Lionel Kiddie City store with my Mom and thinking the earth and sun and moon aligned when I saw Berzerk on the 2600 for $0.98.... And then Donky Kong Jr., then Yars Revenge.... Everything was on clearance and there was a massive amount of inventory. I walked away a happy nine year old and I never lost the passion for games.
All i know is even though Atari screwed up. Oldschool games are awesome.
I used to play the ET game as a kid. It was part of my game rotation when I was at my great aunt's place. My attention span back then was even shorter than it is now, so I didn't play any game for very long at a time. I actually tried to beat ET a few times, but never really having a solid idea of what the actual objective was made that rather difficult. Awful game, but not the worst I've played.
I remember playing E.T. over a friends house for the first time. I vividly recall that it was the first video game that I played and felt completely disillusioned by the experience. You have to understand, Going into 83 everything was E.T. this, E.T. that... It was a mega hit. Kid's loved it, adults loved it, it made audiences laugh, cry and dream, it was a masterpiece... and marketed extraordinarily well. Cross promotional marketing with Reese's candies, plush dolls, lunch boxes, then the horrid game.
The assumption was, it's E.T. it has to be great. It wasn't. I scratched my head playing, like what is even the objective of this game? What am I trying to get to? Who is this guy, is he my friend or enemy? I'm just walking along and I fall in a pit with nothing interesting in it.... I was eight or so and I knew this games design was completely botched. Thing is, to that point, the poor 2600 Pac Man included, I had never played a video game and thought I'd rather be taking a bath.... This game made me want to go put my Super Friends pajamas on and go to bed, that's how exciting it was.
M&M passing up on being in the movie was a little bit of an Oops!
Just a little bit.
Indeed. It sure boosted the sales of Reese's Pieces, which were still relatively new at the time.
Don't get me wrong... there were (are) bundles of unplayable garbage in the video game industry. But the majority of the games in the early 80's are so sublime, programmed with so little code, yet so much fun and so challenging. The music in those games was so "ear worm worthy" I still catch myself humming them or whistling them today.
Games like E.T. and Pac Man were bad, but compare them to games like Pitfall! and Adventure.
I'm just saying, I think the 8-bit days had more gems than turds.
Either you just didn't play many games, or your glasses are dyed a little pink. The market was rife with stinkers even back then.
@Rbp7ooz - I agree 100%. The same guy that bombed on E.T. got the job because he made Yars Revenge which still plays well all these years later. They thought well this is the guy who made Yars Revenge, he can shit out a gem in a few weeks working alone.... Oh well.
Given the tools at the time, it's pretty remarkable how many games were gems. Pitfall!, River Raid, Vanguard, Yars Revenge, Combat, and BOXING. I want to play Boxing with someone right now!
I'm going to come right out and say it, here on the internet in front of everyone....
I LOVE the Intellivision disc controllers!
Who's that pretending to sign my Intellivision ink? Keith Robinson, Programmer of TRON: Solar Sailor and owner of Intellivision Productions!!!
The Intellivision was ahead of it's time. It was the first true 16 bit gaming console and the first to offer a game where your firing direction was independent of your movement.
I remember reading about someone porting the game and digging through the code to fix the glitch where you couldn't (easily) float out of the holes if you managed to find your way into them. Even knowing that it was possible, I'm still not sure that this game would have been really enjoyable these days, just thinking of the amount of rage that game induced in me as a child...
I agree! It was ahead of it's time.
TeeFury had this shirt for sale. I, of course, bought it immediately: