Video games

[moonwise]

When I was a kid, I had an Atari. I didn't have too many games for it, but my parents would get me a new game as a gift from time to time. It seems that they had a knack for picking some winners. Not only did I have a copy of E. T., which is widely considered one of the worst and most disastrous games ever made, but I also had a copy of Journey Escape, which was featured in this Mental Floss list of the 10 Most Bizarre Games Ever Made. As I had no idea who the band Journey was at the time I got the cart, and the gameplay was completely mystifying, this was not one of my favorites.

All I can say is that the games in question must have been on sale.

Comments

[pantswarrior]

I never saw why E.T. got such a bad rap - there were other games for the Atari that made just as little sense. At least in E.T. I had some idea what I was supposed to be doing. With the Superman game, I was just flying through screen after screen at random without a clue if I was supposed to be doing something.

Of course, almost all our Atari games were bought used and had no booklet or anything... maybe with a booklet, that game made sense, but E.T. still didn't.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The gameplay for E.T. wasN't bad for an Atari game - of the two games I mention, Journey Escape was definitely worse - but it seems that the excessive hype doomed it to failure.

I could never figure out what the goal was in Pitfall. It seemed that you just ran out of time after a while.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the E.T. phenomenon was the huge, huge number of games they thought they were going to sell. IIRC, it would've had to outsell the top Atari game threefold...and it sucked.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Agreed - so many copies were produced that Atari more or less set themselves up to fail. The game would have had to be better than Super Mario Brothers to break even, and it wasn't.

[mebil.livejournal.com]

We got the Atari 2600 the Christmas my Aunt Annie passed away. While she was in the hospital, she confused the "expensive machine that went ping" to our eternal playing with the game console. We did not have the system set up in her room.

We had about 20 games. Combat was good--better when you were competing against someone that took the game seriously. Asteroids was fun. I liked the graphics on Pitfall. E.T. was interesting to play.

We also had the Texas Instrument 99/4A computer. This captured my attention. If my brother didn't destroy the unit, I would probably be a computer programmer now. I remember my parents, aunts, and uncles were highly impressed that I could program music. Granted "Fur Elise" was not that complex, but still. I would say "Hunt the Wumpus" was the worst video game ever. http://www.dreamcodex.com/playwumpus.php

Did you see where the one guy was paid $31,000+ for his copy of Air Raider (?)?

[skurtchasor.livejournal.com]

Seriously. While E.T. wasn't that great of a game, it wasn't that terrible, either. I think there a lot of gamers today (including many who weren't born until well after the 82/83 crash) who hate on E.T. just because it gives them some kind of nerd street cred.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I certainly played the hell out of it as a kid. It was a real surprise to find out exactly how controversial it was.

[skurtchasor.livejournal.com]

And yet we hear little to no critical panning of the 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark....

[pointedview.livejournal.com]

I only ever saw the cover of the Escape game - never got to play it. I do remember reading about it, though.

*sings*

"She took the midnight train going inn-eee-wherrrrre ..."

And now that bloody power ballad is one of the most-played tunes from the Eighties. Perhaps a hidden level for the Scarab ship traveled to the future and found The Sopranos? :)