E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

Game: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Console: Atari 2600
Release date: 1982
World's worst video game's score: 1.7
Known ratings: PCworld's worst game ever made, Gamespot user score 3, videogamescritic grade F.
Review: If you ask anyone has played this game before they will tell you how terrible it is. No matter how you rate it, E.T. was a misbegotten product that deserved to be buried. Why would the years biggest movie and console mess the game up, you may ask. Simple, the lead designer was given a mere 5 weeks to make the game so it would be available for the Christmas season. With terrible controls, various glitches, you can barely move too! The gameplay sees you dodging goverment agents and pits (Since when where there pits in E.T!?!?!?). The amount of pits is large and its very easy to find yourself falling into them again and again and again and again. The sound effects are very poor but the title theme may fool you into thinking that the game will be good. With a poor design due to Atari wanting the game ready for Christmas made this a game to miss. The object is to gather pieces of E.T.'s phone in order to, you know, phone home. You cant move very far before you fall into one of the million pits in the game. The title screen and music are nicely rendered, but that is where the wow factor ends. Not good when the best part of the game is the title screen.
More info: 4 million catridges were made but less than 40% of them were sold! It was partly the reason for Atari's bankruptcy in 1984. The 60% of cartridges Atari returned were buried in a landfill despite lots of protests and it was a large finacial loss.
Gameplay Video: