I loved E.T. when I was a kid and actually managed to finish it. I never got the hate. My guess is that I only saw the movie much later and so had absolutely no expectation whatsoever.<p>To me, it was just another Atari 2600 game. In fact, after racking my brain for hours on games like Swordquest[1], and almost injuring myself and destroying my controllers playing Decathlon[2], E.T. was nothing. Recognizable characters! A quest that made sense! Challenging controls, not inhuman controls!<p>After seeing Atari: Game Over [3] I now think this game is significant, not for its reputation but for the story behind it. It is a great case study.<p>All my admiration to Howard Scott Warshaw[4] for his career as a game developer, what he went through after the E.T. debacle, and finding his way out in the aftermath.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordquest" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordquest</a>
[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Activision_Decathlon" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Activision_Decathlon</a>
[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MT_msVoRAg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MT_msVoRAg</a>
[4] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Scott_Warshaw" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Scott_Warshaw</a>
Man. I've been staring at my screen for a few hours trying to understand some modern webrtc shenanigans. Then I read these crazy fools (with love!) disassembling and reverse engineering like this and it makes me just feel like an idiot.<p>Kudos guys. This is the weirdest labor of love, but you're awesome.
This is awesome. But what's this I see?<p><pre><code> [Y] Hacker News new | threads | comments ...
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2. ^ Autopsy: Lessons From Failed Startups ...
356 points ...
3. ^ Fixing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600...
32 points ...
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You guys make me so, so sad, some days. :(<p>It's interesting that still there's no decent 6502 disassembler for 2600 code. You'd think it'd be a lot easier to write one in Python than it was in 6502 assembler for your Commodore 64.
> why it is hated then and today?<p>because it is a grinding game that only managed to exist today because of online iterations.<p>it is single player World of warcraft.