It might seem hard to believe today, but back in 1982 the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was huge. It didn’t have the “teen appeal” of Titanic or Twilight, but it was the kind of movie grandparents, parents and church groups could feel good about taking their little ones to see. And so take them they did… and the movie became a phenomenon.
It only made sense, then, that there would be a video game tie-in based on the movie. Although newer systems like Intellivision offered better graphics than the stodgy Atari 2600, Atari’s gigantic user base ensured that the company would win the rights to make the game. When kids found out that E.T. the video game was coming out, they gleefully added it to their Christmas lists by the millions. E.T. was perhaps the hottest gift of the 1982 Christmas season.
There was just one problem… the game sucked. The graphics were so horrible and the gameplay so boring that even today, 27 years later, the game still makes it onto “Worst Video Games of All-Time lists”. In fact, given the game’s high-profile at the time, it often ranks near the top of those lists, too.