Items tagged with E.T.-The-Extra-Terrestrial
In any other universe, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial would be a long forgotten game at this point. Not just because it came out for what's now an ancient game console -- the Atari 2600 -- but also because it was such a terrible game. And not just terrible, but considered by many to be the worst video game of all time. Incidentally, that's one of the reasons it's remembered today, though even bigger in importance is how badly if affected Atari. Toss in a legend about millions of cartridges being buried in the desert, and you have the making of a documentary. Microsoft helped produce the documentary called Atari: Game Over, and it's now available to watch for free on Xbox and PC. If you're a student...
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It was the stuff of gaming lore, but after being unceremoniously buried in an Alamogordo, NM landfill in 1983 after selling poorly, a multitude of Atari cartridges were dug up this spring. It was a lark for anyone remotely keyed into the story, but then--what exactly is supposed to happen with 1,377 unsold Atari game cartridges from over thirty years ago? You sell them, that’s what. (And give some away.) The city of Alamogordo has decided to distribute the cartridges to film companies and museums, as well as the general public, according to the Alamogordo News. Diggers found some 60 different titles in the hole, including E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (171), Centipede (190), Defender (116),...
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Back in 1983, Atari had a flop on their hands with “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial”. Officially, no one knew what happened to the scads of unsold cartridges, but the legend was that Atari secretly just dumped them all into a New Mexico landfill and covered them up with concrete. (Um, yeah, it was a different time.) After more than three decades, a company called Fuel Entertainment managed to get the rights to excavate the Alamogordo site and invited Microsoft’s Xbox Entertainment Studios to film the whole shebang. The result? Al Capone’s vault it was not. The excavators hit pay dirt. “The findings started out very promising, with an old, dusty Atari 2600 joystick buried...
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