Commissioned from Howard Scott Warshaw on a deadline of just a few weeks, this Atari game sends E.T. wandering across a screen of interconnected areas, collecting parts to build an interplanetary phone while dodging government agents and trying not to fall into the pits that interrupt his progress. Its reputation as a commercial flop, along with its association with the cartridge burial in a New Mexico landfill, turned it into shorthand for the industry crash of 1983. Myth aside, it remains an unmissable piece of gaming history.
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