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Oct 10, 2020 · The True Story Behind the Worst Video Game Ever Made. Atari’s 1982 ‘E.T.’ game was so disastrous it’s been blamed for the company’s downfall and the crash of the entire industry. The man responsible for the game, however, has taken it surprisingly well.
You're correct, Atari games ARE generally poor in comparison to what came later. The best you can do these days is to try to appreciate them in context of where video gaming was at in the late 70s and early 80s.
Jun 3, 2014 · It is so bad, Atari buried 12 million unsold E.T. game cartridges in the Alamogordo desert of New Mexico, covered it with cement and tried to forget about it. Gosh, critics of the game say....
- 10 3D Tic-Tac-Toe
- 9 Karate
- 8 Fire Fly
- 7 Sneak 'N Peek
- 6 Sssnake
- 5 Warplock
- 4 Sorcerer
- 3 King Kong
- 2 Star Fox
- 1 Amidar
Release Date: 1978
One quick look at 3D Tic-Tac-Toe for the Atari 2600 immediately proves how far video games have come as a form of entertainment. 3D Tic-Tac-Toedelivers on exactly what it promises and it's hard to imagine anyone that prefers this game's wireframe aesthetics over the traditional pen-and-paper approach. 3D Tic-Tac-Toedoesn't offer anything beyond its thin concept, but the most excruciating detail of the game is that the computer takes 20 minutes to make a move. Such a long processing time drags...
Release Date: 1982
A karate Atari 2600 game seems like an easy win, but Karate is sadly one of the console's most embarrassing entries. There's really no rhyme or reason to Karate's controls, which means that random joystick movements work as well as any "strategy." On top of everything else, Karate’s rudimentary graphics make it look like it's an early release and not a game that came out later in the console's lifespan. Karatealso contains a baffling gameplay decision where it actively gets more difficult aft...
Release Date: 1983
There are a number of video game developers who are still finding their footing as they develop Atari 2600 titles, but Mythicon has a notorious reputation for developing some of the console's worst games. Fire Fly is an unoriginal space shooter that plays like dozens of other Atari 2600 games. Titles like Fire Fly can stand out through creative design touches, but Fire Flydoesn't include any sound effects, and its background is limited to an empty black void. There's just so much blank space...
Release Date: 1982
Sneak 'n Peek takes the novel idea to translate the playful pastime of hide-and-seekinto an Atari 2600 game. This weird game pits Sneak and Peek against each other in what's easily the laziest version of hide-and-seek to date. Players have limited time to hide—and later seek—through a rudimentary house, which then repeats. RELATED: The 10 Rarest Video Games, Ranked Sneak and Peek don't have any animation abilities, so they just disappear when they make contact with their hiding places rather...
Release Date: 1982
Sssnake is a regrettable Atari 2600 game that plays more like a demo than a finished product, even during this era of gaming. Sssnakecontains a player—who is conveyed by a single block—in a bland arena while they avoid snakes—represented by several connected blocks—and other avoidable obstacles. None of the enemies in Sssnake are genuinely challenging, but the game's single-life and single-screen setup provides players with the bare minimum. The introductory screen setup is all that Sssnakeam...
Release Date: 1982
Warplock is a hollow attempt at a Space Invaders-like shooter that strives for the bare minimum on every occasion. There are plenty of disposable shooters for the Atari 2600 and Warplockis among the worst due to its one-hit game overs and lack of range with its level design. There's only a single screen that Warplockrotates through with its alien invasion, which makes it very easy to figure out the pattern and go into autopilot for an exercise that increasingly stops feeling like a video game...
Release Date: 1983
Not to be confused with the harmless enough Atari 2600 Disney tie-in, Sorcerer's Apprentice, plain old Sorcerer from Mythicon is much more bereft of personality. Sorcerer is more or less Mythicon's Fire Fly but with a derivative palette swap of sorts. RELATED: 10 Factors That Led To Nintendo's Rise There's not much logic behind Sorcerer and the lowest of stakes accompany gameplay that involves the recovery of a disc and the shooting of enemies. Sorcerer's instruction manual conjures quite the...
Release Date: 1982
Atari 2600's King Kong has the audacity to rip off Nintendo's Donkey Kong and slap Universal's celebrated giant ape IP on the game, but do all of this worse.King Kong requires players to ascend to the top of the screen to rescue a damsel in distress who's been kidnapped by a monstrous monkey. King Kong only has one screen, unlike the many that make up Donkey Kong. However, the game's strange programming decision to have barrels "fall" from the bottom of the screen instead of the top becomes f...
Release Date: 1983
Another Mythicon misfire, Star Fox is a poor attempt at an action title where players ward off alien threatswhile navigating barren levels to find a crystal. Disappointing sprite designs and an incessant buzz on the soundtrack don't do much to enhance the experience. There are also perplexing control quirks that seem to actively work against the player, like how the recovery of the flashing crystal gem in each level turns into a stiff claw machine-like endeavor. There's just not enough to gra...
Release Date: 1982
Amidar is ostensibly a more painful version of Pac-Man that quickly becomes a repetitive chore. Amidar's box art brazenly teases a King Kong-esque gorilla, but the simplified gameplay involves the colorization of a crude maze while the player avoids contact with enemies. The basic grid designs for the levels, slow gameplay, and annoying sound effects only emphasize how much work actually goes into the seemingly simplistic effectiveness of Pac-Man. It's easy to be exhausted with Amidar by the...
- Daniel Kurland
- Senior Staff Writer
May 31, 2017 · Programmers like Warshaw were making bad games. And just as quickly as it had risen, Atari was falling. The CEO was fired, and the company had to lay off hundreds of employees.
- 2 min
- Geoff Brumfiel
Oct 23, 2024 · This wasn't just any game — it was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a game that would go down in history as the worst video game ever made. It epitomized the consequences of corporate overconfidence, unrealistic deadlines, and maybe a dash of 'No problem, boss!' hubris. And here it was, literally buried by the company that made it — a covert ...
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Are Atari Games really bad?
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This has nothing to do with graphics - just poor game design or poor attempts to convert true arcade games to a console which could not replicate the gameplay. Yes, there were exceptions to this (Pitfall, amiright?) but the VAST majority of the games were horrible.
