Atari Et Games Found

[dcdrac]

The game that Atari tried to bury

Film crew finds Atari ET games in New Mexico archaeological dig | Technology |

[MacDeath]

damnit, where is the dumpster where we can get GAZZA 2 and Chase HQ2 cartrides for GX4000 ?

[mr_lou]

[Gryzor]

This is great fun and all, but I wonder if it deserves a whole documentary...

[qbert]

Yes I read about that 1 hour ago... I have no word to express my joy     ... This story was so much a legend for me for years and years that I have tears in my eyes today : I would like so much to be there at the moment, in the desert of New Mexico, and to touch and smell (seriously !  ) one of these old cardboard boxes (or rather what's left of these after 31 years in the sand !).
Stay tuned this evening for the national evening news on TV... no doubt it is going to be a major "joke of the day" on many channel (I'm in France here and people still love Atari for sure , although in France Amstrad was and remains the number one in  memories).

[AMSDOS]

It came up today in our daily newspaper with a photo of a guy holding a copy of Yars Revenge. Were they implying that "that game" was sent to the scrap heap too? I brought a copy of Yars Revenge second hand once from a Market and even though it didn't have the Manual or Box, it was an enjoyable game I thought.


The ET Game was not a game I was familiar with probably due to that reason that Atari didn't want to release it, but the video seems to be showing another interesting game, if there was a game I think that should of been thrown to the landfill is "Raiders of the Lost Ark", I simply didn't follow that game at all.

[Bryce]

The ET game was a steaming pile of shite, can they please bury them again. I'd watch that. 

Bryce.

[AMSDOS]

The ET game was a steaming pile of shite, can they please bury them again. I'd watch that. 

Bryce.

Only if they bury Raiders of the Lost Ark along with it.

[pelrun]

The ET game was a steaming pile of shite, can they please bury them again. I'd watch that. 

There's a dissenting view, that ET was close to being a reasonable game except for a few bugs. Someone actually went through and fixed those issues last year, and ended up with a playable game:


Fixing E.T. for the Atari 2600

[Bryce]

There's a dissenting view, that ET was close to being a reasonable game except for a few bugs. Someone actually went through and fixed those issues last year, and ended up with a playable game:


Fixing E.T. for the Atari 2600

It was still crap after being fixed.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Sometimes there's a thin line between brilliance (or adequacy) and a disaster...

[MacDeath]

exactly, you don't fix a shit, you simply dump it (and flush it after).

é.T(ron)

[AMSDOS]

I like to think that ET should of being Green and that Spielberg changed it to Brown so they wouldn't scare the kiddies. 

[The Last Bandit]

The "Atari Business is fun" book goes over all this is pretty good detail and tries to correct a few mis-truths out there.

ET was crap - this cannot be disputed, but it actually sold very well (in the top 10 2600 best seller list) until word got out how rubbish it was. Unfortunately Atari produced way too many carts, they'd hope it would be a console seller. Game was written by the same guy who done 'Yars Revenge' arguably one of he best titles on the 2600 but he was given a ridiculous deadline, hence the sh1te game.


Atari had a cart production facility in New Mexico and when this closed they dumped the excess unsellable stock in this landfill so a lot more then just ET carts will probably be uncovered.
Was hardly a secret or 'legend' as made all the local news when the plant was closed back in the day.

[AMSDOS]

Points taken, though it's not really being explained why the game is Crap, the early video suggested a playable game, I guess it could have used some more levels, though Donkey Kong on the 2600 didn't have much to it either, I guess it's possible I've watched a revamped version of the game though to accompany a news story you would think that someone has grabbed and original copy of ET to show flaws.

[ralferoo]

The stuff I read said the traps were too frequent, too easy to get caught in and never be able to escape. So you'd basically have to reset the game to continue playing as there'd be no way of dying or continuing.