Atari’s ET: which video games deserve to be buried in the desert? « Latest News « Archaeosoup Productions Archaeosoup Productions

Does the cache of discarded Atari games, buried in a landfill qualify as archaeology? Image Source: Private Collection

They found it. It’s pretty unusual to have an archaeological dig for something from mere decades ago, but…

This article titled “Atari’s ET: which video games deserve to be buried in the desert?” was written by James Walsh, for theguardian.com on Monday 28th April 2014 10.07 UTC

They found it. It’s pretty unusual to have an archaeological dig for something from mere decades ago, but some of the rumoured-to-be thousands of unsold copies of “ET The Extraterrestrial” on the Atari have been found buried in New Mexico.

A production company working on a documentary film of the company have found hundreds of copies from the legendary cache, of a game thought of by some as one of the worst ever made.

Job lots of the game have already been ‘for sale’ on ebay. A seller’s note warns they “may contain sand.”

Was the game truly awful? One of our commenters certainly thinks so:

tigerm

08 March 2014 3:07am

This game was terrible. I think it retailed at about $50 at the time but within months it was discounted several times and I fell in to the trap of buying at $10.
I was later surprised that the development of this game was five weeks, it played like it took five minutes.

A quick glance at the game walkthrough provides further evidence. You do get the excitement of walking around a series of largely useless rooms. The game also contained unpredictable traps that were almost impossible to escape.

Movie tie-ins, in particular, have a particularly poor history, with hastily-cobbled together cash-ins being a particular bane of the industry.

If it were up to you, what video games would you prefer to have seen buried in the New Mexico desert? Share your suggestions in the comments thread, and we’ll post a selection above the line.

To get us started, here are a couple of suggestions from Twitter:

@guardiantech Superman 64

— Nathan Reid (@nathanreid) April 28, 2014

@guardiantech THQ’s Truth or Lies on Wii. Even at £1 the shops can’t get shot of it. See also: pre-owned copies of old FIFA games.

— Games Asylum (@gamesasylum) April 28, 2014

And here are some suggestions from Guardian commenters:

CeefaxTheCat

28 April 2014 12:04pm

Copies of Superman on the N64 should be sealed in concrete and dropped into the sea.

Chris Swan

28 April 2014 12:17pm

Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga. Even with the “10 pints please” cheat I still couldn’t complete it. I’m sure there was a glitch in it that meant it was impossible to complete.

The Pink Floyd-esqe music on the death screen still haunts me.

benjohn

28 April 2014 2:12pm

“Dragon’s Lair” for the Spectrum.

Each scene was a crap and horribly animated mini game that took a few minutes to load. If you weren’t instantly killed, and actually survived, your reward was the wait while the next mini game loaded.

A mate of mine spent almost all his birthday money on that because it looked so cool in the arcade. Luckily the tape for some of the mini games, was corrupted, so he had a good reason to take it back.

snatchcandy

28 April 2014 1:39pm

At some stage in the mid-90’s Virgin published a ‘Viz’ video game.

It combined the joystick waggling ‘gameplay’ of Daley Thompson’s Decathalon with gruesomely grim graphics, without including even a soupcon of the famous humour that has kept Viz magazine alive to this day.

There is no word to describe how bad this game was. (Even in the Profanisaurus.)

TheRelegator

28 April 2014 12:19pm

I’d happily put the later Destroy All Humans games in there. Crypto can keep ET company.

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