If you’ve heard of E.T. for the Atari 2600 then you’ve also probably also heard that it’s not a very good game. In fact “not very good” is being pretty generous. E.T. regularly finds itself hanging out with Superman 64 and Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing in ‘worst games of all time’ lists. And hey if you’ve spent any time with the title you know that reputation is well-earned. God forbid you actually owned the game. Just imagine, somewhere out there was a child who probably received this for his sole birthday present. That folks is how serial killers are born.
Now you also may have heard the tales that in 1983 the game’s poor quality and sales combined with the dire state of Atari’s business at the time prompted the company to orchestrate a mass-exodus of all remaining copies of the game to a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Why Alamagordo? Well aside from its close proximity to the game’s original storage location in El Paso, TX, the city’s landfill promised that it did not allow scavenging and that it would crush and bury the games upon delivery. Alamogordo also sports a fairly low population, and presumably they weren’t big E.T. fans.
You see? Atari wasn’t satisfied to know their game was buried. Much like Jumanji, they wanted to ensure the game never fell into the hands of an innocent person again. Well so much for that.
Many regarded it as a simple fairy tale, Snopes even has the whole ordeal marked as a “Legend” rather than confirmed. But that wasn’t good enough for Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment who, with the assistance of Microsoft’s Xbox Division, are producing a documentary about the game’s bizarre fate. After months of preparing, an excavation began today and struck…well I don’t want to say gold…but…they found the games.
Oh sure, it’s all smiles now, but much like Pazuzu’s amulet in The Exorcist, or the Ark Of The Covenant, it’s surely only a matter of time before these people all come to the full realization of what it is they hold in their hands.
How long will it be until the game is returned to the ground from whence it came? Only time will tell.
