Trying to understand the hate

[celerystalker]

There are several games that always get bandied about as the worst game of all time. I get some of them. Superman 64 is not just glitchy, but completely fails to deliver any kind of satisfying action befitting a superhero, etc. Some, though, confound me.

The main one I'm thinking about is ET. I'm not taking the apologist route of, "It's a miracle that it got completed in 5 weeks!" My thought is more along the lines of "Hey, it's ET. What sort of video game were they supposed to make about ET?"

I mean, that movie doesn't have a bunch of physical combat to play on. There's not a ton of stealth scenes to play out, not that the Atari VCS could've really gotten it across if there were. It's just a boy growing attached to an alien and the themes surrounding it with trust and innocence. What sort of game was gonna come out and be really satisfying to fans? Another maze game? A platformer that has literally nothing to do with the film?

The only thing that might've fit in that era would've been a text adventure, and that wouldn't have had mass appeal to sell carts like they planned. The fact is, it was never a good license for a game from the beginning. What did parents expect? A shooter where ET rains down punishment on his would be captors Independence Day style?

I get why people expected something from Superman. What did they expect from ET?

[Aussie2B]

I firmly believe that most people quipping "worst. game. ever." about E.T. these days have never even played it. Likely never even played a 2600. I wouldn't be surprised if many haven't seen the movie either. They're just little parrots who will repeat whatever the AVGN-style Internet "celebrities" tell them because they think it's funny. They never had any expectations for E.T. in the first place and have no intention of ever trying it out because, as long as they've known of the game's existence, they've known it as "the worst video game ever".

[Edmond Dantes]

Ironically Kris Asick of "Ancient DOS Games" did a review of E.T. where he said its actually a pretty good game, just if you don't have the instructions then its impossible to understand without hours of experimenting or trial and error.

Other games I see people hate on that really don't deserve it:

Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. You know what? Screw anyone who hates this game. Nothing is better than going on adventures with bipolar, gibberish-speaking Pac-Man... especially when you get to intentionally piss him off. I'd love to see a fan remake that expands the concept.

Hydlide. Okay, I'm not gonna say that this is good or anything, but most critics don't seem to understand that it was made in 1984, and even then a lot of critics hold it up against games like Final Fantasy VII, somehow expecting an NES game to have in-depth cutscenes and artsiness.

The Sega Genesis sequel is awesome tho.

For that matter RPGs before the PS1 in general tend to get the shaft, especially if they don't play like typical JRPGs.

[MASTERWEEDO]

Im 90% sure that most E.T, hate comes from people that didnt have a manual.

[celerystalker]

Yeah, the internet parroting has always been a pet peeve of mine. People get so jaded and think that they know everything. Even here, how often do you see people post that there's nothing left to say about classic games that hasn't been said, yet on dozens of the GOTD posts, I see replies along the lines of, "Oh, I've never seen that" or "I always heard that that game sucked, but it looks interesting." People watch a few videos, read a Wikipedia article, and assume that all facts are present. Nothing replaces experience.

I still just don't get what people ripping ET want from it other than to jump on the bandwagon. I mean, even with modern tech, what kind of game makes for a good ET game? Telltale adventure, maybe? In the early '80s, I didn't want ET. I was only ok with the movie anyway, but I just couldn't imagine what I'd be doing in the game... so I played Pitfall, Warlords, Maze Craze, and Air Sea Battle a lot.

I guess what I'm saying is that if these folks, especially the YouTube crowd, want to rag on the game, where is the obvious way it could have been better?

Edmond-I want to like Hydlide, but its sluggish pace has always been what holds me back. I keep thinking that one day, I'm gonna be in a really patient mood and "get it," but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I should spend a little more time with Super Hydlide on Genesis. I've had it for decades, but it's one I've never given a proper go due to not enjoying the NES game much. Maybe playing that one might open my mind to the NES game better.

[Aussie2B]

I don't think most of these people parroting "worst game ever" even consider how E.T. could've been better. A lot of them are younger gamers who are of the mindset that ALL Atari 2600 games are bad and that E.T. is supposedly the worst of the worst. They see all pre-NES gaming as some sort of "dark ages", when games were bad and gamers didn't know any better until they wised up and the industry died because of all of Atari's bad games, and then Nintendo came along and saved it. That's the general narrative that they've swallowed and endlessly regurgitate. Though, now it's starting to shift such that younger gamers are also beginning to see everything before 16-bit gaming as totally unplayable, at least without Nintendo re-releasing it in a dumbed down form (just imagine the whining there would be if the NES Classic didn't include save states).

[Emperor Megas]

I was one of those freaks who thought E.T. was an alright game. Here's the REAL shocker though. You ready for this? I actually REALLY liked Raider's of the Lost Ark!

Now, I've never ended the game, and honestly never really understood the cryptic game play. I don't think I ever had a manual, but I loved the trial and error and incredibly cryptic experience. It was always SO mysterious to me, and seemed so much deeper than anything else I'd played at the time. The game play was so varied, and I actually felt as though I was accomplishing things the farther along I got.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I firmly believe that most people quipping "worst. game. ever." about E.T. these days have never even played it. Likely never even played a 2600. I wouldn't be surprised if many haven't seen the movie either. They're just little parrots who will repeat whatever the AVGN-style Internet "celebrities" tell them because they think it's funny. They never had any expectations for E.T. in the first place and have no intention of ever trying it out because, as long as they've known of the game's existence, they've known it as "the worst video game ever".

Agree 100%

[Aussie2B]

The landfill is another funny thing about the narrative people parrot. You'll have so many people claim that it was all about dumping E.T., yet there were far more copies of other games dumped than E.T. Just look at the chart in this article that shows the print run sizes versus what was sold of Pac-Man, Asteroids, and E.T.:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/ext...estrial/et.htm

Though, there's something to be said for the fact that they couldn't even sell through half of what they manufactured of E.T. There may have been more unsold copies of Pac-Man than unsold E.T. copies, but at least Atari succeeded in selling over half of the stupidly large Pac-Man print run they produced.

[Greg2600]

E.T. is just meh, I don't love or hate it, I'm really ambivalent.

[Tanooki]

I don't remember how it played, but I did play it on a friends 2600 back around 1990. I don't remember loving it and I don't remember it leaving a hatred for it either as I do remember when a game really gets me mad or I hate it heaps from awful design. I do remember being more bored by it, but not for it being awful or not working right. I've played far worse, so that's why I felt the way I did in the first post and wrote that. It's just not good(great) or bad(awful) it just exists.

[FieryReign]

Hydlide and Super Hydlide were lame and boring slogs. Virtual Hydlide was a great cheesefest.

[Jorpho]

What sort of game was gonna come out and be really satisfying to fans? Another maze game?

How about a Frogger clone?
http://www.videogamehouse.net/gamemain/cartsde/et/

I mean, even with modern tech, what kind of game makes for a good ET game?

As per the Wikipedia page, there have been many attempts at making an ET game, even with "modern tech". None of them have been even remotely memorable, clearly (I can't even seem to find any evidence of the games listed near the end) – but they definitely weren't infamously bad, either.

[Steve W]

I definitely remember seeing a couple of those Gameboy titles and being surprised since there was such a stink on the idea of an E.T. game that anybody would ever try and make one again.

There are far worse games on the 2600. Try playing any of the Mythicon games (you don't need to try all three, since they're hacked versions of the same tech demo that's barely fun or playable) for more than 5 minutes. Skeet Shoot is another example of a programming demonstration that was released as a game.

I've played E.T. but found it completely unmemorable. It's not terrible or great, it's just... there. I didn't have the instruction manual so I'm sure I was missing the point of it all. It's just dullness punctuated by frustration with falling in pits. For a five-week effort, it's actually not bad. I wonder how it would have turned out if he had five months instead.

[celerystalker]

How about a Frogger clone?
http://www.videogamehouse.net/gamemain/cartsde/et/


As per the Wikipedia page, there have been many attempts at making an ET game, even with "modern tech". None of them have been even remotely memorable, clearly (I can't even seem to find any evidence of the games listed near the end) – but they definitely weren't infamously bad, either.

That's at the core of what I feel about ET. Not that it's a good game, though it's clearly not the worst ever, but rather that I don't think you can make a good ET game that has anything to do with the movie. You don't make a shooter built around Sophie's Choice, you don't make a platformer based on The Bridges of Madison County... some properties don't blend well with the medium.

That said, I want a vertical shooter based on Sophie's Choice.

[Emperor Megas]

Couldn't you make it like Krull? With different segments that play differently that relate to different parts of the film?

I stage where you sneak through the house or backyard or woods trying to avoid the mother, or a dog or forest creatures, a stage where you're avoiding men in black trying to catch you, a stage where you're controlling Eliot on the bike racing through the streets, an obligatory bike flying stage, maybe overhead where you avoid trees, cliffs and predatory birds, etc..

[Aussie2B]

Well, if a movie doesn't match well with action gameplay, then just make a story-focused game. It could've been some sort of adventure game or visual novel or what have you. Of course, they wanted a big-seller and were limited by the hardware, so the types of games that were more suited to hardcore PC gamers in those days wouldn't have been very feasible to that end.

[Niku-Sama]

ET and PAC man wasnt why they wound up in a landfill it was because they closed a customer service, distribution and repair center in El Paso Texas.
They closed it because they couldn't figure out how to run a proper business