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Mar 21st, 2016 at 14:27:25 - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (2600) |
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for Atari 2600
For this game log, I chose the game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. I played the game on a virtual Atari 2600 at the website virtualatari.org. E.T. is a mystery game rooted in a deeply cryptic story. The player must solve the mystery of how to play the game and find a way to comprehend just what is going on.
On my fist session I was immediately thrown into the middle of what may have been a field. Presumably I was playing as E.T. There was number at the bottom of the screen counting down from 9999 whenever I moved (presumably a timer for your life). When I pressed the button (space on keyboard), the counter would seem to go down even more quickly, and it would seem I was doing some ability though I could not tell what at first. At the top of the screen were these symbols that appeared to have some directional component to them. Often they would be arrows in some direction though sometimes it would be a thing such as a roman numeral 3. The arrows would appear to change at odd points when I walked around a scene.
I was able to walk around a scene and transition to some other location by reaching the edge of a scene. It did not always make sense how I transitioned to the next scene in terms of global space. Some times it would seem I would immediately go in circles while other times I would keep traveling to somewhere different. Other times it would appear that I ended up in the middle of the starting scene.
There were also the pits that I could fall into in some scenes. Most of the pits were empty though I did find one with a flower that increased my life timer thing. In some of them I would find this strange object that would show a c thing on the top of the screen. To leave the pit, I would have to use the button ability which makes E.T.'s neck grow. Once clicking this I was able to levitate upwards out of the pit. Leaving a pit was difficult as you would often fall right back into it after returning to the main scene.
Many scenes would have an additional dark pixel next to the pits. I originally thought these pixels were just part of the sprite for the pits but later learn that I could pick them up. Picking up these pixels started an additional counter next to the timer thing. This number appeared to just keep track of how many I picked up.
There were also these people that would chase you in some scenes. At least one person looked like a detective and another looked like a scientist or doctor. When they grabbed E.T., you would be dragged back to this building thing in the blue scene. They may have have taken some of the things I picked up though it was not really clear what was going on. Using the button ability in these scenes would make E.T. move faster.
E.T. would appear to die once the life counter thing reached zero. A kid would then appear and ressurect E.T. with 1500 on the life counter thing. After a couple times dying, I got a gameover screen. I decided to end the session there.
I decided to read up a little bit about the game before starting the second session. I learned that you are suppose to pick up three pieces of a telephone, call home, and then escape to the departing ship. Apparently those strange objects I picked up once or twice in the pits are suppose to be parts of the telephone. The main goal is apparently to keep search all the pits for those parts. All those black pixels that I could pick up were suppose to be Reese's Pieces. They are suppose to restore energy and when nine are collected I should be able to get a telephone part. The arrow things on the top of the screen I believe were meant to represent a location on a cube map.
With this amount of new understanding of the game I thought I could succeed in it. I was wrong. I still had little idea of what was going on. I collected nine of the Reese's Pieces, but I was still unsure of what then to do to get a telephone part that way. I believe I found two separate parts of the phone in different pits. Though it would appear that I would lose those parts at odd times. When I was playing it did not seem consistent in that being grabbed by a person would cause you to lose a part. I could have continued to experiment more with what was going on and read up things. However, after a couple more frustrating experiences I accidentally ended the game on the virtual Atari. I figured that in order to capture the true spirit of the game I would need to end the session on a low note such as this.
On the surface E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a terrible game. There must exist some compromise that allowed for such a thing to exist. I am probably not enlightened enough to comprehend its deep underlying themes that may have allowed for this. Perhaps it was an experiment for Spielberg to analyze the inner workings of the human soul. Maybe the discoveries he found were too haunting and pushed him back to lighter works such as Schindler's List. Perhaps it was due to corporations being out of touch with their employees and the market and then demanding unrealistic deadlines. Perhaps though, this work of art was never meant to have any meaning in its cause of existence.
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