Friday, February 20, 2009

I'm sure my Father and Grandmother thought I was insane.

Yep, it's a post about what most video gamers of our generation think is the worst Atari 2600 title ever created. E.T. Most of our generation is full of beans.

Now I admit that playing it as a ten year old lad I found it to be pretty dang hard as the game consisted of you collecting Reese's Pieces, falling into wells (Which you had to do to find the three pieces of the communication device), and avoiding goverment agents and doctors who rushed at you with syringes, and sometimes healing a dying plant. At least you could use your 'powers' to make the bad guys run away, it had a neat sound and your blocky E.T. would raise its neck.

However, the reason for this post is an easter egg that I discovered that blew my mind as a small boy. Now thanks to them all powerful tubes that the Internet is made of I've found out that there is a few more of 'em.

Try to imagine my surprise as a youth when healing one of the plants it changed into a Yars housefly (From Yars Revenge) and flew off the screen. I jumped up and ran out of the house and shouted excitedly to my Father and Grandmother in the backyard about what had just happened. After dragging my Grandmother back into the house to show her...it of course wouldn't do anything. What does a ten year old know about prepping the events for an easter egg?

Now, thanks once again to Atarimania, you will know the intricate secrets that were hidden from me at that tender age so very long ago...what you do with it is up to you...


"Collect all the phone pieces and give Elliot 7 pieces of candy. Then revive the flower. It will change into a Yar and fly away. Repeat this for the next round and the flower will change into Indiana Jones. Repeat this a third time and the initials HSW3 (for Howard Scott Warshaw – the 3 denotes this is his 3rd game) will appear. Actually, you don’t have to get all of the phone pieces for the trick to work. You only need to collect the H piece for the YAR, the S piece for Indy, and the W piece for the initials. "

2 comments:

Parson Roscoe said...

I remember trying to play this game. To my 8 year old brain it was completely incomprehensible. I think I gave up after a few minutes and went back to playing defender.

I wonder what other bizzare Atari easter eggs were floating around back then.

Vic Sage said...

I'll have to research that...