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?