E.T. on the Atari 2600 | Octav1us

[@Jaws19show]

Such an honour to be on the receiving end of an Octavian Mard! Thanks for getting me in on this. Love the video! ☺

[@Asobitech]

smol mard

[@benjaminbeatty5653]

The script on this game was awesome! It made me laugh out loud!

[@spwolftech]

Decided to do a 5 year Anniversary channel marathon so here is my HI to try and make the algorithm be nice. Fun and great no matter how many times i have watched them.

[@johnbrown3155]

I loved the final pit fall gag. Summerises the main problem with the game, and gives us a good laugh to end on.

[@dolari]

I actually have a copy of ET and a working 2600. A few months ago I plugged it in as part of my "check all my old systems every year to make sure they still work." When the game started up and played the music, my roomie yelled at me: "HOW DARE YOU MAKE HER PLAY THAT GAME!"

[@dolari]

Probably dating myself but I had this game as a kid and actually finished it! It was pretty challenging and a neat idea for a game. It was also long, boring and tedious. But one thing it wasn't: Fun. Everyone gives 2600 Pac Man a lot of guff, too, but I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't arcade perfect (at all), but it was still fun. :)

[@coyoteartist]

Your system is a her?

[@dolari]

@@coyoteartist- careful now, she'll hear you. ;)

[@AndyLundell]

Not the worst game on the system by a long shot, ... but back then people still naively expected movie tie-ins to be good. Makes sense, right? Excellent big budget movie == excellent big budget game? Now we know better.

[@PixelsLtd]

Really good review, brilliantly written and impressively indepth - of course very funny also. Its great that you did a real deep dive into the game and gave it a proper chance rather than just going "hur-hur its shit" like many people online do. Excellent stuff, well done both!

[@blazer666del]

Your braces are very distracting

[@Nimmo1492]

This seems like as good a time as any to share one of my favourite jokes. Q: What's ET short for? A: 'Cos he's only got little legs!

[@StuHambone]

I think this is probably the most enjoyable review of this game I've yet to see.

[@worldofretrogameplay6963]

I love rewatching these old episodes! ☺️❤️

[@Caspian237]

Congrats on getting the Second Day of Scary out on the second day, just :) Reminds me of my student days; meeting essay deadlines by the skin of my teeth. Fantastic video.

[@betaman7988]

I gotta say this is the best ET review I’ve seen to date. You actually looked for positives whilst also including the negatives in a light and humours way. Well done!

[@jasonsalisbury7965]

Great job capturing the frustration of the game. I can guarantee you that when I played the game as a 7 year old, I did not think it was bad but simply could not understand it at all. The dev designed a game for kids that you needed to be an adult to understand or stick with.

[@zh84]

My friend Andrew got the ET game for his Atari 2600 when we were twelve. He was so excited! He showed us all at school. And after he went home that day and played it, I suppose he never wanted to talk about it again...

[@deadbydayinblack]

I have to confess that when I where a little lad back in the harsh no mean city streets of the Gorbals in Glasgow. (around 1984 ) I loved the game. As to why?...maybe because it was really really rare for me to get a game for my 2600 ...games where really expensive back then. You had to get them from littlewoods catalogues . I remember my Granny putting her high heel through the box of Q-Bert so it had what looked like a gun shot right through it. Ahhhh such memories

[@polishenglish8356]

It is such a pleasure to listen to you! :) I love your videos soooo much! :D Respect to Barshens crew as I learned about such a wonderful KZbinr thanks to them! :D

[@w0lfyovi294]

Awesome work, top-notch production, and quality. I love your humor so much.

[@bazza5699]

great video this.. really made me laugh. it's the pits thou innit

[@steveh4290]

I'm fairly sure those ET carts are collectible now & you can get a decent price on them. A while back I read the local council dug up the New Mexico desert carts & auctioned them off as they had added value from being a buried cartridge.

[@TechHowden]

Those copies dug up from the desert are expensive and very rare but regular ET cartridges are worth almost nothing (a few dollars)

[@legacyoftheancientsC64c]

I laughed way too hard at the echoey "are you f*cking kidding me" at the end.

[@ShaelynneDFuller]

Same here.

[@ribenasquash]

OK 1: The Field has a scene which takes place in a field. 2: There is a pit which ET falls into when he goes all gross and slimy and grey near the end. It could be a ditch but that's close enough. 3: 5 weeks is not bad for a whole game. That is how long it took David Wise to engineer (not even compose) the Aquatic theme for Donkey Kong Country. 4: That is a crazy amount too many to reproduce. Also, making more pacman games than exist consoles to play them on speaks to me of someone got a secret payday on the Atari staff. When someone over-ordered N64 Glover games by only a few hundred thousand it was arms in the air mayhem and panic and everyone got fired and the whole Studio was shut down [citation needed].

[@JW666]

The ending was funny XD

[@theshaggyfreak]

I still have my original cart from when I was a kid. I even thought it was a good game back then!

[@theshaggyfreak]

Octav1us It definitely is a hard game and it definitely gets frustrating but if you play one of the designers other games, Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's pretty tough in a similar way albeit it is better designed since there was a lot more time to work on it. I think an even worse movie tie in game for the 2600 is Superman. I think Superman was praised, though, due to the time period that it was released much early in the 2600s life. It's tough to look back on all these games, though, since they really don't have the impact that they did on my childhood brain. I do still have my 2600 with all of my old games but I haven't really touched them. As much as I loved playing it back in the day, I think I have fonder memories of the games on my Commodore 64. I'm hoping to stream some of those C64 games in the near future once I finish building a new power supply for it. Anyway, great job on the video! Keep up the amazing work!

[@donnierussellii4659]

E.T. is basically about an imaginative, sensitive boy yearning for friendship after losing his father. The game captures this feeling of loneliness and danger. I think the pits might be a reference to kids falling into wells, although Baby Jessica happened years later.

[@ridcullyshat8522]

Brilliant. Having seen and read many reviews or rants on this game, I laughed at this the most.

[@darran311]

This game does highlight many of the "pit falls" associated with game development

[@DonaldPerkins]

The Christmas of 1982 I was 13 years old and this game was under the tree. Of course I also got Yar's Revenge and Pitfall that year as well so I don't remember being disappointed. There were just SO many crap games out for the 2600 by that time that I and most of my friends didn't really get to upset over them anymore. We just chucked them into the pile of other crap games. It was too long before most of us basically stopped playing on our 2600's at all.

[@RetroDawn]

Same programmer of E.T. made Yar's Revenge as his first game. It's considered one of the best for the VCS, and is one of my favorites. He had enough time to make that one, though. Did you mean *wasn't* too long?

[@strangulator42]

omg this is the cutest video game KZbin channel in existence!!! You can tell AVGN I said that lol! You had so much more patience with this game than I did... after the 15th pit I fell into I just couldn't take it anymore...

[@ShamrockParticle]

Fantastic review! Great wit! And this is a first: a tiny alien willy immortalized in pixelated form, 🤣

[@Inaflap]

The scariest bit is when you are trapped in a pit, and that creep stood at the top, lowers down a bottle of lotion for you to rub into your skin, or else you get the hose again.

[@johnacove]

The Pits.... ;) Great video as always!

[@iced_coffeelvr1069]

Another great video! Can't wait to see the rest!

[@silkwesir1444]

There is no fixed version. The "fix" was to put in an additional sheet of instructions into the box, clarifying how to get out of the pits (especially that you are not allowed to press Up once the screen changes) as well as summarizing the most important points from the manual. www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/et_silver_i_13.jpg The actual game was unchanged. As you said earlier, they already produced 5 mio.

[@RetroDawn]

No, there is indeed a "fixed" version of the game. It was made by a fan by hacking the original. It makes several modifications that truly improve the game and make it a must play.

[@Conan_The_Librarian]

Awesome video!!!! Beautiful as always 😊

[@herbiehusker1889]

How have you never seen the movie E.T.?

[@hpbifta]

Nice job Octav1us, I don't envy you trying to plow you way through that. Though the history of the game and how it came about is actually quite interesting. The retrohour lads did a great interview with it's creator if you ever get the time/inclination to check it out. Keep up the good work :)

[@R_T_Ralph]

Love it. Cant wait for day 3. xx

[@chrispunks83]

Loving 7 Days of Scary so far, can't wait to see the rest! :)

[@netzgrenze]

Thank you for making this great video

[@wisteela]

Fantastic video. Oddly I've only very recently discovered that I've got this game, and have no memory of ever buying it.

[@davidbrider]

Great video, as always.

[@edrosa3485]

That last bit was epic!

[@zombee38]

To avoid falling twice into a pit while levitating steer to the right or left depending on the shape of the pit...most of the time works...I finished this game like 5 times when I was a kid

[@TastyAbbyJamz]

This should've been called Pitfall. Amirite?

[@coyoteartist]

I can't groan loud enough.

[@metalhammer303]

Wait a second You NEVER SEEN E.T?? I'm shocked 😱😱😱. On a slight tangent, just stumbled across ya channel and im loving it

[@d_vibe-swe]

about time you watch the classic movie then 😊

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

Entertaining and informative and GLORIOUSLY funny. The closest thing to a Greek Temple in California would be this place, probably: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Villa But I doubt that J. Paul Getty was involved in capturing ET on the Atari 2600....

[@Anthony-qt8wv]

I bought this game after a few months of it being out. I got a discount on it at the toy store in our Mall we went to. I did beat the game back then and had a lot of fun with it. A few months ago i played it again and came across a crazy glitch i never seen before. I taped the glitch and have it on my channel . It is 39 seconds long and titled: E.T. Atari 2600 Video Game, I Die as The Ship Comes, it Locks It Up! When it locked up, i mean it locked up, resetting it was the only way to continue. Pretty crazy!

[@luxtenax9175]

Is your rant about pits in the game a reference to that one Parks and Rec episode?

[@GryphonICD]

Wait....is that Ernie from Bert n Ernie fame in the pit? Is this game also one of the first crossovers ever?!

[@Flofutz]

Yay. Waited for this vid all evening.☺ They dug a this very landfill ... i don't know how they got on with it but they did found some of Ataris Hardware.

[@ciphermatrix]

Come to think of it, ET can travel vast interstellar distances to do a bit of alien botany, yet can't bring a bloody phone with him? He DESERVES to be left to shrivel up in a PIT!

[@markfgns1265]

*that* pixel Once seen, cannot be unseen

[@davy_K]

The "fixed" ROM changes the collision detection on the pits so that it is more intuitive. It's not a great game but there are worse. Maybe HSW could have found a better way of hiding phone pieces if he had more time. The collecting pieces requirement lets the game be different each time you play which is a decent idea.

[@davidbrider]

You’ve never seen ET? Ooh, treat yourself - it’s a great film!

[@RandomRetr0]

Yeah, bad idea googling things like ET’s extra pixel. Rule 34 says so 😂

[@JamesChessman]

Name of song at the end? I love it

[@natgrant1364]

I still have my copy of E.T. from when I was a kid. I have to be honest, I didn't have that many games to begin with and this one certainly gave me something to do so I was okay with it.

[@zh84]

Nice icon, by the way.

[@spayseghost]

it makes me so sad when i realize she will never make a video like this again. she was a great artist!

[@LeePorte]

Great vid. How'd you manage to get your hair so big?

[@willmistretta]

This game's fatal flaw is that it was targeted at little kids, yet is effectively incomprehensible without a careful reading of the instructions. Guess what impatient little kids are bad at.

[@kellerkind6169]

Totally not on topic, but.... Octav1us, where can one get one of those T-Shirts (the one with your face on it) that you're wearing in the 3D-Monster-Maze video (at 0:55) ?

[@SpeccyHorace]

International diplomacy?

[@AndyLundell]

I've seen people put up this excuse a lot recently. I don't buy it. Manual-required games are hardly rare for the 2600, and even after reading the manual the game is tedious and buggy. I think the real problem was that back then people were still naive about movie tie-ins, and were completely blindsided that a big name movie would get a rushed shovel-ware tie-in.

[@yessopie]

I played this game when I was 5, and I got really good at it. The thing people these days don't get is that back then, you actually only had a couple of games, and only one of them would be newer than a couple of months-so you would invest the time into figuring a game out, even if you were 5. In fact, figuring out how to play the game _was_ the game... that was the fun part. These days, if you can't figure out a game, instead of persevering, you just immediately give up and move on to the next game, or browse social media, or whatever, because there are a thousand other things to do.

[@silkwesir1444]

@@AndyLundell "Manual-required games are hardly rare for the 2600" that's not true. out of hundreds of games that came out for the system, you probably can count the number of them which required reading the manual on two hands. Depending on how you count, perhaps. Many games may have had information which made the game much easier if you read it, but you could also figure it out eventually or even if you didn't, still derive fun from the game... whereas in E.T., if you don't know what to do, you are lost, and you never will feel like you're making progress, while you're confronted with the same obstacles again and again What you mentioned clearly did have an effect. Also, people weren't used to this genre of games, today we'd call it "action adventure".

[@SLHellGirlFan]

Great video 😎 its been a while since I saw this game. Good job at at least diving into the game and that one pixel 😂😂😂😂

[@georgeyreynolds]

Seems kinda ironic that a game with so many pits actually ended up in one ... Makes you wonder if the developer had an inkling that might be what would happen or if someone at Atari worked out what to do with the unsold games after playing it. Funny world.

[@_The_Jim]

Absolute gold

[@mattelder1971]

When ET is dying, he is found in a muddy ditch or possibly a pit of some kind, so that MIGHT have been the inspiration for the pits in the game. I have a feeling though that the game designers were only given a brief synopsis of the movie before they made the game, which explains why it has very little to do with the plot of the movie.

[@OnlyEpicEmber]

Yay, another one of these! But my WiFi is about to go off for the weekend 😢

[@OnlyEpicEmber]

Apparently they kept it on long enough. Hoorah!

[@Okurka.]

Your WiFi? Then use a cable...

[@OnlyEpicEmber]

@@Okurka. I don't currently have one, and it was all systems

[@DerpyLaron]

Decades of knowing this game... I never thought of that pixel as his junk ...

[@projectzip]

Brilliant. Now go watch the film!

[@MonkeyBscts]

This bloody game... I had this as a kid (might still have it in my dads attic) and I never even got as far as working out what the hell I was supposed to do. Don't think I even worked out how to get out the pit I'd fall in within seconds of starting the bloody thing.

[@SianaGearz]

You're supposed to read the supplied manual, that's how.

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

Play the hacked / bug fixed E.T. ROM. It does the game justice.

[@AaronPaluzzi]

You might enjoy the Code Monkey's cartoon, Season 1 Episode 2. It's a good parody of E.T.'s development. ;)

[@scatterkeir]

What I say when a bargepole isn't enough is "I wouldn't touch it with a barge".

[@treyjohnson4035]

I have an Atari Indiana Jones tatoo,and a signed ET cartridge by Dee Wallace

[@blackphoenix77]

But how did she get out of the pit in the end???

[@sonixthatsme]

I was expecting a weird neck extension at the end, but I enjoyed the video none the less.

[@gfmretro]

Great review, now I don't have to play it myself! 😁👍

[@purplemage]

I must be a bit weird, I kind of liked playing it when I was a youth, but I also played the pacman to level 99 a few times

[@paulmasala815]

Aaargh I've probably missed the blindingly obvious link but... Where can I get a shirt with your avatar on it? Saw you in one on the first day of scary I think.

[@oddpodshow]

Great stuff :)

[@Daniel15au]

Wow this is a great review of the game. Very balanced.

[@Inaflap]

The pits are a prophetic depiction of the landfill sites where many Atari games ended up. Remember the Alamogordo.

[@paulgascoigne5343]

More accurate than most holy books..

[@skyler6175]

"This game is all about those pits." And yet, pitfall was about lakes and scorpions. What was Atari on?

[@silkwesir1444]

Pitfall was by Activision

[@dibbsgaming]

Great vid! I still have a copy of this, and while it definitely sucks, I actually found myself putting a lot of time into the game trying to wring some form of enjoyment out of it. Still yet to get the payoff for my efforts, but at least I tried, ha ha!

[@RetroDawn]

Definitely play the fixed version, then.

[@sparkles122]

Have you really never seen the film? It still makes me cry after all these years

[@freedomsstain]

You should give ET a watch Octav1us. It holds up pretty well and despite being a bit of a kids film is very watchable for adults. It'll hit you right in the feels.

[@MassimilianoManiscalco]

How to make a great video from a terrible videogame? Somehow you did it, I’ve had so much fun watching it!

[@OperationPhantom]

Maybe the game was "accidentally" based on the 1981 movie "the Pit" instead? About a weird ("alien") kid who is forced by his teddy bear to feed the Tra-la-logs in... THE PIT. Classic!

[@treyjohnson4035]

If u flip a difficulty switch,no Fed

[@strain42]

Man, this game really is just...the PITS! :D

[@thumbwarriordx]

@2:50 lol I know exactly the clip you're talking about. God bless us one and all.

[@MarcWeertsMusic]

😂 Fun video and good collab!

[@NigelXW]

Are you not doing your videos in 50fps anymore? :o

[@MellowGaming]

Wait, wait, wait... you haven't seen E.T.? I thought people our age were forced to watch that as kids? Are you telling me I didn't have to? Cos that film bored me to tears. Wasn't enough shooting and Arnie for me.

[@Inaflap]

You probably saw the edited version. There's an adult version, and it's not only ET's neck that extends like that. That pixel bump has so much potential. It lights up on the end too, just like his finger.

[@jimandaubz]

No no. Our age and younger where forced to watch *A* Spielberg film. Any one would do. That was the law. Not that just E.T. Truly sorry your parents misunderstood that. Indiana Jones was far better.

[@abadenoughdude300]

I actually can't recall if I've ever seen it. I don't think I did but won't put my glowing-ass finger on it. I sure as heck don't intend to willfully watch it though.

[@paulshinndraws]

Wait! Now it makes sense why all those cartridges were buried IN A PIT!!!

[@stephandolby]

Loads of sinkholes? Must be based in Ripon, then.

[@exodous02]

The scientists I always thought looked like gang members, like some homies wanted to carry you around for some reason. . .

[@MaestroDrake]

I still can't find the man who will buy off those E.T. cartridges from your team in Wasteland 2.

[@morbid1.]

graphic in early games is more surrealist interpretation than actual thing...

[@Jackalblade9]

This definitely made me laugh...E.T. was HUGE when I was a kid, but I never got the appeal of the little bugger, and never asked for the game. Guess my weird taste helped me dodge a bullet. Or at least a pit.

[@duckywenselcomedy]

This and Atari Pac Man were really considered the worst! But ET isn't that bad! You just need the manual to know how to play it! We did a podcast on the crash if your interested in checking it out! Direct Link: wearepodcasts.podbean.com/e/we-are-bagu-s01e08-crashcast-atari-pacman-and-et/

[@OnlyEpicEmber]

E.T: It's the pits

[@nneeerrrd]

Wow dat grand finale :))))