------------------------------------------- E.T. the Extra Terrestrial Strategy Guide Author: Kylohk Version: 1.0 Platform: Atari 2600 Date: 2008-6-9 ------------------------------------------- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | PREFACE AND A SHORT HISTORY LESSON | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ In 1983, the video game market in North America experienced a crash where the industry was nearly destroyed and resulted in the bankruptcy of many video game companies. There are many reasons why the crash occurred. For instance, the market was flooded with a lot of awful titles made by many upstart companies that intended to cash in on the video craze. At the same time, there was a fierce marketing campaign by home computer manufacturers (e.g. Commodore), drawing potential customers away from video game consoles. To make things even worse, rival console makers reversed engineered each others' consoles, creating "adapters" which allow their own console to play other consoles' games! One of the symbolic moments of the crash was the release of the game on Steven Spielberg's hit movie: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. Atari had spent over US$20 million to secure the rights of the game, multiply that by 2.5 and you get the equivalent amount today (as of 2008) factoring in inflation. So far so good. However, the programmer (Howard Scott Warshaw) couldn't have a worse situation in his hands. He must complete the game by September 1, 1982 so as to allow the game to be shipped in time for the holiday season. How much development time was spent on this game? Six weeks, that's right, a meagre six weeks! And how do you expect a good game to be made in such a short time frame? Anyway, this game has been considered by many as the worst game ever made. Now, many people nowadays would have just played this game on an Atari emulator. However, I decided to go a bit further: I went to eBay and found a seller packaging a used Atari 2600 system with E.T. and Phoenix for only £20. With 2 games and a console (PAL as well!) for such a price, it's definitely worth it, I must say. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | PLAYING THE "WORST GAME OF ALL TIME" | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Having played this game a number of times, I'd say that most people who dismissed this game were doing so because they didn't really know what to do. Having read some of the reviews of this game on this site, I found out that a large number of people bought the game without the manual. As a result, they move E.T. around aimlessly, falling into wells, climbing out, only to fall in again! Once you've read the manual, you'd at least know what those icons on top of the screen meant and what those tiny little dots scattered around the place are. This guide serves to help you at such and beat the game with a high score. --------------- Story --------------- The story of this game is kind of like that of the movie: E.T. is somehow stranded on Earth and must find a way to contact his spaceship to pick him up again. This game will have you searching through numerous wells to find the phone pieces before you find a place to contact your mothership and return to the extraction point. The only character from the film that will be involved is Elliot, who'll be collecting the Reese's Pieces in your possession upon request. ----------------------- OK, let's get started! ----------------------- OK, plug your E.T. cartridge into the Atari 2600 console, along with a joystick controller. Change to the appropriate TV channel and turn the console on. You are treated to a title screen featuring the green face of E.T. on a blue background, along with an extremely low pitch version of the E.T. movie theme droning in the background. Before you do anything, you should select the game type by pressing the Select button on your console. As you press that button, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 will cycle on the purple bar at the top of the screen, denoting the type of game selected. Game 1 is the hardest: In addition to finding the bits of his phone to call his spaceship, E.T. must avoid the wrath of a yellow coated FBI agent who'll drag him away and steal his phone pieces, as well as a scientist who'll catch him back to his lab for observation; Game 2 is slightly easier: You only have to worry about the FBI agent; Game 3 is the easiest: Neither of the enemies are there, so you can take your time and find the phone pieces. Once you've selected your game type, press the red button on your controller to begin. --------------- Controls --------------- The controls in this game are very simple. Use the joystick to move E.T. around: E.T. can move in 8 directions: Up, down, left, right and the diagonals. The red button is used to perform different actions depending on the icon on the top of the screen. If no icons are on top of the screen, press and hold the red button while moving E.T. to run. --------------- Game layout --------------- The game world is very small, featuring only six different screens. To make things simpler, the screens are arranged in the shape of the cube. The top screen is the forest in which E.T. is left stranded (and will be picked up after you've contacted the spaceship). The bottom screen is the urban area where the FBI building, science lab and Elliot's house are. What a coincidence. The 4 screens in the middle have a green background and are filled with numerous pits. They appear in the following sequence (assuming you keep going from the left edge of the screen to the right edge): Screen 1: Two tall wells on the left and right edges of the screen, couples with two narrow ones between them. The 4 holes are arranged in a rectangle. Screen 2: 4 large wide wells near the 4 corners of the screen. Screen 3: 2 chevron shaped wells at the top, with 2 small parallelogram shaped ones beneath them. Screen 4: 8 wells arranged in 3 rows, 3 in the top row, 2 in the middle row, 3 in the bottom row. 4 of the wells are connected to the left and right edges of the screen. Screen 4 is the most hazardous one of them all. You'll be most likely to fall into a well upon entering it. This is due to the close proximity of the wells to the edge of the screen. --------------- Context zones --------------- The context zone is the vital mechanic of this game. While wandering around the place finding phone pieces, you'll find different icons appearing at the top of the screen. The icons indicate what will happen when you press the red button while E.T. is standing at that spot. Here are all the icons and their meanings. Arrow (in 4 different directions): This is the Teleport Zone. E.T. will automatically teleport to the nearest screen in the direction pointed by the arrow. Question mark: The question mark indicates a Find Phone Zone. Pressing the red button when the question mark is at the top of the screen will cause a small yellow dot to appear in one of the many wells on the screen, telling you where a phone piece can be found, if there are any. Note that sometimes there may be more than 1 phone piece in the same screen. Two concentric circles: This is the Eating Zone. E.T. will eat one of the Reese's Pieces (those black dots scattered around the place) in his possession to restore a small amount of health. Face yelling something: This is the Call Elliot Zone. Elliot will appear on the screen and retrieve all the Reese's pieces in E.T.'s possession. Each Reese's Piece adds up to your final score in the end, so try to call Elliot as much as possible when you've found candy. If you have 9 Reese's Pieces on you, Elliot will give you a phone piece after he's picked up the sweets! Sweet indeed. Roman numeral three: Useful only in Game Types 1 and 2, the roman numeral three indicates a Send Back Zone, which will send both the FBI agent and scientist back to their buildings at the bottom screen. This is important to avoid capture by either of the humans and bide you valuable time. Flying saucer: This is the Phone Home Zone. Once you've collected all 3 phone pieces, use it to phone home. This zone can be found anywhere, even in the urban area. Square with a cross in the centre: This is the landing site. Once you've contacted E.T.'s spaceship, head back to the forest and search for the landing site. Once you've found it, stay where you are and wait for the timer to run out. Once it runs out, the spaceship (which looks more like a purple lift) will pick E.T. up, ending the game. ------------------------------ Help! I've fallen down a well ------------------------------ The wells, ah yes, the wells, this is one of the most notorious features of this game. Once a player has fallen in, he's gonna suffer as he tries again and again to escape, all to no avail. Despite how careful you are, you'll eventually have to jump in one, since that's where the phone piece is. Now, don't panic, this guide's here to help. While in a pit, press and hold the red button and E.T. will extend his neck. Hold the joystick upwards and he will slowly levitate out of the well. It does not end here though. Continue holding down the red button at this point. Once you see the screen change back to the surface, immediately tilt the joystick to the left or right, otherwise E.T. will fall back into the well. Guide E.T. to solid ground and release the red button. E.T. is safely out of the pit. This isn't the most intuitive control, I have to say, but at least you now know how to do it. --------------- Health --------------- The goal of this game is to help E.T. assemble his phone, contact his spaceship and return to the extraction point to be picked up before he runs out of energy. E.T. arrives on Earth with 9999 points of energy, shown at the bottom of the screen. As E.T. moves around, he loses 1 point of energy with each pace. Falling into a well results in great damage, a loss of 269 energy. Even more energy will be lost as you try to get out of the well. Using any context zone costs 19 energy each time as well. However, E.T. can recover a meagre 341 energy with every Reese's Piece he eats. E.T. will die when he runs out of energy. When that happens, Elliot will come and revive him and give him 1500 energy back. E.T. has three lives in this game. If you happen to fall into a well with a wilted flower, stand next to it and press the red button. E.T. will revive it and gain an extra life. ----------------- General Strategy ----------------- Once you know exactly what to do, the gameplay is very simple (at least in Game Type 3). It may be possible to beat the game in just a few minutes. As soon as E.T. lands, start exploring Screens 1-4 and look for the Find Phone Zones. Use the Find Phone Zones to know exactly which wells contain phone pieces. Drop down into the appropriate wells and collect the pieces before getting out fast. If you happen to find 2 screens without any phone pieces, one of the remaining 2 screens must have more than 1 phone piece. Search the remaining screens, taking care to use the Find Phone Zone twice (use it immediately after you've picked up a phone piece, maybe another piece is in one of the other wells.) Once you've collected all 3 pieces, search the screens for the Phone Home Zone and contact your spaceship. An octagonal countdown timer starts. Head back to the forest and quickly search the place to find the landing site. If you can find it, stay there and the spaceship will pick E.T. up once the time expires. If you can't find it before the time expires, keep searching until you find it and memorise its location. Use the Phone Home Zone again and wait at the landing site until the spaceship comes. --------------- Yummy sweets --------------- If you have watched the film, Elliot attracted E.T.'s attention with his Reese's Pieces, scattered on the ground. The sweets are back in this game in the form of black dots on the screen and can be collected by moving into them. The number of Reese's Pieces in E.T.'s possession is shown at the bottom of the screen to the left of the energy meter. When you use a Call Elliot Zone, indicated by a face yelling something on the top of the screen, Elliot will come over to retrieve your candy. Each Reese's Piece retrieved adds up to your final score if you can beat the game. To make things even better, Elliot will reward you with a phone piece if you call him after collecting 9 Reese's Pieces! If you are not a fan of the wells, this trick will be worth looking into. In addition, the Reese's Pieces tend to appear near the centre of the screens. A neat trick is to start from the centre of Screen 2, collect the Reese's Piece, then go straight right into Screen 3, where another piece can be found between the top and bottom holes. Get that, go straight left to Screen 2 to find another Reese's Piece in the same position. Keep going left and right until the sweets stop appearing. This is a surefire way to rack up candy (in conjunction with more points and maybe another piece of the phone). One final word: Collecting candy is of second priority in this game. Your first priority will be to find the phone pieces. Only start collecting candy afterwards! ------------------------ Dealing with the humans ------------------------ If you select Game Types 1 or 2 at the starting screen, you'll be playing much harder modes of this game. This is due to the presence of two hostile humans that will disrupt your quest for your phone: The FBI man and the scientist. The FBI man can be identified by his yellow trench coat. He runs after E.T. and tries to catch him and send him back to headquarters. In doing so, he steals one phone piece from E.T., as well as all the Reese's Pieces he's carrying! I guess these agents have to collect evidence, or are just plain greedy. The scientist, identified by his white costume tries to catch E.T. so he can take him back to his lab for observation. He does nothing to E.T., other than disrupting the flow of the game. Once you've been caught by either human, you'll be left in one of two buildings in the urban area (bottom screen). Once you are there, you are free to leave! Security must be lax in those days. In addition, Elliot's house is just across the road! Either way, just leave the screen and continue along. Both humans can be repelled by using a Send Back Zone, indicated by the Roman numeral three at the top of the screen. Using such zones will send them both to their headquarters, saving you a lot of time as they make their way towards you from there. If you can't find a Send Back Zone and the two humans are closing in, just run into the Scientist and let him carry you off-It's better than having to lose your phone. In conclusion, the FBI man and the scientist make the game infinitely harder for you. You must do everything outlined in the General Strategy Section much faster than before, along with heavy psychological pressure. Your best bet is to not get out of your way to collect any unnecessary Reese's Pieces. --------------- Scoring --------------- You'll be given a score after E.T. is picked up by his spaceship. You'll see a scene where E.T. stands outside Elliot's house while Elliot walks around and around it. Meanwhile, E.T. is fed the Reese's Pieces retrieved by Elliot and you gain points as he chews on those sweets. The total score is given by the following formula: Score = Total energy left + bonus score + (Number of Reese's Pieces retrieved by Elliot)*770 + cumulative score The more energy you have when E.T.'s picked up, the more points you get in the end. You get 770 points for each Reese's Piece retrieved by Elliot in the game through the use of Call Elliot Zones. As for the bonus score, I don't know the exact formula for it, but something's always added to your final score in the end. Press the red button at the scoring screen to start a new round. Once you've beaten the round, the points gained from that round will be added to the points gained from the previous round to form a cumulative total. This is what I mean by the cumulative score above. As you play more rounds, your score will get higher and higher. So in the end, it's not skill that nets you a high score, it's pure determination (and masochism in the eyes of most gamers). +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | THE FINAL WORD | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Never mind the awful graphics and wonky sound. Once you figure out what to do and how to win, E.T. is quite enjoyable. The main problem is that most people back then could not figure it out themselves, leading to hours of frustration. Once I know what to do, I was able to beat Game Type 3 again and again in a timely manner without much difficulty at all. The simple gameplay, once understood, can easily strike a chord with the player and make him play additional rounds for a long time. In conclusion, this game is a kuso-ge: A game so bad that it's actually good. Despite the overwhelmingly negative reception, the game was actually Platinum. You heard me, Platinum, having sold 1.5 million copies. There is a small problem though: 4 million cartridges were manufactured for this game! Due to the large amount of the unsold stock and the number of cartridges returned to retailers from disgruntled consumers, Atari had no choice but to dump the excess cartridges in a landfill somewhere in a New Mexico desert. As a result, hard copies in this game are very rare. You can try eBay, or you can go on a day trip to New Mexico. Maybe you can find the burial grounds of this game. Maybe the cartridges will still work! This guide is copyright 2008-10 to Kylohk and to be hosted only on GameFAQs. No provisions will be made for other websites, so don't bother contacting me.