E.T. Doesn't Suck?
My brother is writing a script for a movie called "True to Life." It's about video game programmers who get laid off and pull off this heist for revenge. Or something like that. Anyway, the script called for a reference to the worst game of all time, which some sources will tell you is E.T. for the Atari 2600. To make sure he's getting his facts straight, he downloads an Atari emulator, a ROM for E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and another for Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark for comparison. Both games were produced by the same person. I watched him play both, and as far as we can tell, E.T. is actually rather passable while Raiders of the Lost Ark is a peice of crap.
Allow me to tell you about these games. First, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. You play E.T., who has just been dropped off on Earth and has to find the three peices of his communications device so he can contact his ship and get the Hell off this godforsaken rock we call Planet Earth. The three peices are in random holes around the forest, which you will drop into and try to hover out of. You can also collect Reese's Peices that you can use to either restore your rapidly-dwindling health or bribe that kid he's living with into giving you a peice of your phone. However, there are two people trying to keep you from your task: A scientist who grabs you and puts you into an easily-escapable cage in town and an FBI agent who mugs you and takes your stuff.
This game plays with a single action button, the function of which changes depending on your location. If you're in a hole, for instance, you can use it to float upwards. The other functions are activated in randomly-placed locations on the various screens. One is to eat a Reese's Piece. Another summons that kid, who takes your Reeses and, if you had nine of them, later returns with a peice of your phone. Yet another teleports you to another screen (and possibly into a hole). A rather useful one commands your pursuers to go home, and a just as useful one will tell you which hole on screen has a phone peice in it. The last one I remember summons your ship once your put your phone together. Unfortunately, this won't be the same place as the ship lands, which it won't do if anyone else is around. Fortunately, the ship lands in the same place as it dropped you off. There's only one level, but you can adjust the difficulty (in terms of enemy speed and number) and when you win you can make E.T. dance while that kid runs around his little pixel house.
Who exactly this game is the worst ever so far isn't particularly apparent too me, especially after playing Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't know what player's expectations were back in Atari's day, but this game is simple and challenging, if short and completely lacking in replay value. But if Raiders of the Lost Ark was considered a good game, maybe E.T. was bad because it was too easy to win. And by "easy" I mean "possible."
Here's the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari: Indiana Jones is on a descending platform looking up at the Ark, which then disappears. Granted, you shouldn't expect much from the Atari, but it doesn't even make sense. Anyway, on to the game.
On the first screen, snakes move down it in an attempt to kill you while you collect your whip. You also have a basket for some reason. On to the next screen. This is the bazaar. It has two shopkeepers. One will trade you his flute for your basket. The flute protects you from the snakes that are still raining down from the top of the screen. We don't know what the other guy does yet. There are also three baskets, each containing either a grenade, a gun, or a key. You can also get a talisman from one if you know how.
The third screen is you falling off a cliff that's apparently just south of the bazaar. You then land in a pit, die from the fall, and respawn where you landed. In the pit is a man in a black trenchcoat. If he touches you, he steals something from you. If you have nothing, he just stands there and humps you. He can also just shoot you and put you out of your misery.
Apparently, you're expected to find out that you can use the grenade without killing yourself and then use it to blow a hole in the wall on the first screen. You can then explore the cave and wind up inside a pink cage you can't escape from. That's all I've seen of the game so far.
Anyway, there you go. What have we learned here today? I don't know either, but I'm trying to wrap this up so I can go to bed. Does E.T. suck? I'm not so sure, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's just short and aggravating. There's a game here, it's just unfinished. If there were more levels, and maybe smaller holes, it might've been decent. Would it be so bad if it were, say, a Flash game? Well, probably.
I feel compelled to continue...
My Flash robot builder still isn't finished, but I showed my teacher what I was doing and he was able to figure out a fix. Basically, I need a button that will make the parent clip draggable that isn't the parent clip itself. It seems so obvious now, especially after completing the next project, which has a single button that makes the entire clip draggable. For some reason, everyone else in class needed an extra week to work on it. Not having done the project that first week, I was one of those people. Fortunately, it didn't take me long to put it together, if you consider four hours over four days short.
The only real problem I had was when I tried to publish it so I could turn it in. There was a fire in the computer lab and everyone had to evacuate. By the time we were allowed in, I had two minutes to get to class. That's solid planning there. Had I taken the bus instead of walking to school, I might've had fifteen minutes to work with. Fortunately, my class was just down the hall and around the corner from the computer lab.
Now I need to start planning my final project. This being a programming class of sorts, I was thinking of making an RPG battle like I did when I took C++ and Java. I was supposed to have started last week, but... eh... I didn't even look at the assignment sheet until today, which was when the project proposal was due. I'm supposed to make an educational site, with games, that appeal to a five-year-old child. Fortunately, I wrote a children's book about dairy farms back in junior high, so I already have an idea for the site. I just need to get my head in the game, is all.
I also haven't touched my webcomic site yet. I'll have to get to work on it some time. You'll notice a new strip is up, which kinda follows a script written by Pyremon Infernos over instant messenger. I had to abridge it slightly to get it to work. This is actually the third strip I made, but for some reason I thought it'd make a better fake-out as the first. I'll need to work on some new strips by the end of next month. That's when the strips I already made will run out.
I kinda feel bad for Terra, like I'm picking on her yaoi/shounen ai/gay porn fixation. Oh, for those of you who don't know, the two characters in this strip are based on people I know from an on-line forum. Terra's the purple-haired Roll recolor and Pyremon's the one in the red cloak.
All right, here's another one of my quiz results:
What Type Of Anime Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Allow me to tell you about these games. First, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. You play E.T., who has just been dropped off on Earth and has to find the three peices of his communications device so he can contact his ship and get the Hell off this godforsaken rock we call Planet Earth. The three peices are in random holes around the forest, which you will drop into and try to hover out of. You can also collect Reese's Peices that you can use to either restore your rapidly-dwindling health or bribe that kid he's living with into giving you a peice of your phone. However, there are two people trying to keep you from your task: A scientist who grabs you and puts you into an easily-escapable cage in town and an FBI agent who mugs you and takes your stuff.
This game plays with a single action button, the function of which changes depending on your location. If you're in a hole, for instance, you can use it to float upwards. The other functions are activated in randomly-placed locations on the various screens. One is to eat a Reese's Piece. Another summons that kid, who takes your Reeses and, if you had nine of them, later returns with a peice of your phone. Yet another teleports you to another screen (and possibly into a hole). A rather useful one commands your pursuers to go home, and a just as useful one will tell you which hole on screen has a phone peice in it. The last one I remember summons your ship once your put your phone together. Unfortunately, this won't be the same place as the ship lands, which it won't do if anyone else is around. Fortunately, the ship lands in the same place as it dropped you off. There's only one level, but you can adjust the difficulty (in terms of enemy speed and number) and when you win you can make E.T. dance while that kid runs around his little pixel house.
Who exactly this game is the worst ever so far isn't particularly apparent too me, especially after playing Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't know what player's expectations were back in Atari's day, but this game is simple and challenging, if short and completely lacking in replay value. But if Raiders of the Lost Ark was considered a good game, maybe E.T. was bad because it was too easy to win. And by "easy" I mean "possible."
Here's the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari: Indiana Jones is on a descending platform looking up at the Ark, which then disappears. Granted, you shouldn't expect much from the Atari, but it doesn't even make sense. Anyway, on to the game.
On the first screen, snakes move down it in an attempt to kill you while you collect your whip. You also have a basket for some reason. On to the next screen. This is the bazaar. It has two shopkeepers. One will trade you his flute for your basket. The flute protects you from the snakes that are still raining down from the top of the screen. We don't know what the other guy does yet. There are also three baskets, each containing either a grenade, a gun, or a key. You can also get a talisman from one if you know how.
The third screen is you falling off a cliff that's apparently just south of the bazaar. You then land in a pit, die from the fall, and respawn where you landed. In the pit is a man in a black trenchcoat. If he touches you, he steals something from you. If you have nothing, he just stands there and humps you. He can also just shoot you and put you out of your misery.
Apparently, you're expected to find out that you can use the grenade without killing yourself and then use it to blow a hole in the wall on the first screen. You can then explore the cave and wind up inside a pink cage you can't escape from. That's all I've seen of the game so far.
Anyway, there you go. What have we learned here today? I don't know either, but I'm trying to wrap this up so I can go to bed. Does E.T. suck? I'm not so sure, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's just short and aggravating. There's a game here, it's just unfinished. If there were more levels, and maybe smaller holes, it might've been decent. Would it be so bad if it were, say, a Flash game? Well, probably.
I feel compelled to continue...
My Flash robot builder still isn't finished, but I showed my teacher what I was doing and he was able to figure out a fix. Basically, I need a button that will make the parent clip draggable that isn't the parent clip itself. It seems so obvious now, especially after completing the next project, which has a single button that makes the entire clip draggable. For some reason, everyone else in class needed an extra week to work on it. Not having done the project that first week, I was one of those people. Fortunately, it didn't take me long to put it together, if you consider four hours over four days short.
The only real problem I had was when I tried to publish it so I could turn it in. There was a fire in the computer lab and everyone had to evacuate. By the time we were allowed in, I had two minutes to get to class. That's solid planning there. Had I taken the bus instead of walking to school, I might've had fifteen minutes to work with. Fortunately, my class was just down the hall and around the corner from the computer lab.
Now I need to start planning my final project. This being a programming class of sorts, I was thinking of making an RPG battle like I did when I took C++ and Java. I was supposed to have started last week, but... eh... I didn't even look at the assignment sheet until today, which was when the project proposal was due. I'm supposed to make an educational site, with games, that appeal to a five-year-old child. Fortunately, I wrote a children's book about dairy farms back in junior high, so I already have an idea for the site. I just need to get my head in the game, is all.
I also haven't touched my webcomic site yet. I'll have to get to work on it some time. You'll notice a new strip is up, which kinda follows a script written by Pyremon Infernos over instant messenger. I had to abridge it slightly to get it to work. This is actually the third strip I made, but for some reason I thought it'd make a better fake-out as the first. I'll need to work on some new strips by the end of next month. That's when the strips I already made will run out.
I kinda feel bad for Terra, like I'm picking on her yaoi/shounen ai/gay porn fixation. Oh, for those of you who don't know, the two characters in this strip are based on people I know from an on-line forum. Terra's the purple-haired Roll recolor and Pyremon's the one in the red cloak.
All right, here's another one of my quiz results:
What Type Of Anime Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
posted by Nicholas DeVivo at 11:22 PM
2 Comments:
I was wondering where you came up with the names of all the characters listed in on of your blogs..Urananium Man..Randy Fiske, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin? I think that might be my son. He lives in Twin Lakes, Wi. He is now 28 yrs. old. Born 08/14/77 Just curious. My e-mail sball22@cfl.rr.com
I thought it was obvious, but I will explain it to you. I copied all the names (Robots, entrants, locations, and all) right out of an old issue of Nintendo Power. All of these were real entries (as far as I know) to a contest held by the magazine in the early 90's. Nintendo Power's favorite entries, those listed in my blog, were shown in issue 44, published in January of 1993. The actual winners, chosen by Capcom, were mentioned in the Mega Man VI review in that year's December issue of Nintendo Power, issue 55.
The only character I made up was Alienman, who I had entered in the contest and didn't even get mentioned. Those names listed in my post are the names listed by Nintendo Power, as are the names of the places they lived in at the time. I don't know where they live now, so unless your son has lived there since 1992 I doubt it's the same Randy Fiske that entered the contest. If you really need to know, ask him about it. I did no research whatsoever. I just copied what I saw in the magazine. I may have been bored, but not THAT bored.
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