In 1983 there was a video game crash. I think its because of the crappy game ET for Atari. It was so bad that they had to bury the cartridges. My gosh. So in this game you play has ET and try to collect 3 phone pieces and avoid random people who take your pieces or drag you off guard. But your worst enemy in this game is the holes. The phone pieces are in the holes, but when you go in one, YOU JUST CANT GET BACK OUT!!! So if you wanna play this game, do us all a favor and DONT!

ET wasn't the cause of the video game crash, it just "helped it along" The reason being that the had to pay a huge amount for the rights to the "ET franchise" and the fact that they game didn't sell that well. Then the crash happened and stores had so many Atari game cartridges that they basically couldn't even give them away. I remember being a very small child and seeing brand new games being sold for 50 to 99 cents! When the dust settled they had so many games that many of them were thrown away. No one is sure if the carts were actually buried or not it's sorta an urban myth.

The main issue is attributed to the fact that Atari let anyone develop games for their console. There was no quality control, no licensing. I mean hell, the Calecovision had a peripheral that allowed you to play Atari 2600 games on it. Imagine nowadays if you could play a PS3 game on an xBox 360...that would never happen....funny that it did back then.

Honestly ET is by no means a great game, but it's sure not the worst of all time. There are plenty of games that I think are worse. Honestly I think pacman on the 2600 is a worse game than ET because the Arcade Pacman was such an awesome game, and the port for 2600 was so botched. Play it sometime and try telling me that it's better than ET. Also try playing Action 52 sometime and let me know what you think of that

At least ET is playable.

The game is bad, but it's reputation is worse... I bet most people who say it sucks only say that because other people say it.

I wonder how many people have actually played it.

legacyme3 : Yeah I agree. Most of the people say it's bad because some crappy video game reviewers on YouTube said it was bad.

The game is not great by any means, but it surely isn't the worst.

Jordanv78 :

Yeah, and it irritates me.

A person can like whatever... but at least PLAY IT before you discount it.

legacyme3 : I did play it... and it isn't as bad as he describes it; causing the video game crash...

But it was a pretty terrible game, that made even less sense than the average Atari game.

I think this game is a little underrated. I have played worse, and one reason why people say it sucks is because it is confusing. You just have to know how play that's all. I still think it's bad just not as bad as people think of it.

I think ET has fallen into a hole that it can't get out of (no pun intended if you've played the game). What I mean by that is everybody labels it as the worst game ever when really..there are worse games. Same thing with Ocarina of Time, considered to be one of the best games of all time. Both have similar prejudice, if you want to call it that. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64 is widely considered to be the best game of all time. In fact stats show that it is the most critically acclaimed. I've beaten it and no doubt is it an amazing game..but the best of all time? No. Same with ET. I've played it, and have a life so I actually didn't beat it like I did with Ocarina of Time and no doubt is it a terrible game..but the worst of all time? No. I think these two games are generic answers. And with good reason, too, with the whole burying of the cartridges for ET and most critically acclaimed for Ocarina of Time. But if you play either of these games you might just realize that neither is the best/worst game of all time.

It's really not THAT bad. I agree with leggy that it got a bit of a rap, and people nowadays just jump on the "E.T SUCKS" bandwagon having never even tried it (or letting the rap cloud their judgement). I have played much worse. 

One interesting bit though is that they sold more copies of E.T than Space Invaders, which was rated as atari's most popular game.

I know everyone is saying it's not the WORST game ever, and your right. It's bad but not the worst. And hey, at least it isn't 52 bad games!