E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600, 1983)

What!?  Surely this is a prank.  Is this April Fool's Day?  I couldn't seriously be adding one of the most despised games in history to a list of Great Video Games.  E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1983) for the Atari 2600?  The game that killed the system, and caused the video game market crash the same year it was released?  There is absolutely no way this could be.  But, yes, I'm serious.  I'm adding E.T. to the Great Video Games because of its influence, historical significance, and because frankly, I kind of enjoy it.
I suppose I should tackle the last thing I said there, as that is sure to be the most controversial.  No, I'm not saying that this is some kind of misunderstood, underrated masterpiece.  It is a severely flawed piece of software, the product of misguided corporate decisions and rushed production.  It is, of course, based off of the classic Steven Spielberg film, where the eponymous alien botanist is stranded on our planet, and befriends a young boy named Elliot, who helps him escape Earth.  The game follows this plot.  Loosely.  I can't recall the part of the movie where E.T. had to go jumping in holes to search for pieces of the telephone, and I must have missed the scene where a scientist takes him to jail (only for him to walk right out again).
So the search is on.  E.T. has a limited frame of time (9999 footsteps, to be precise, shown in a counter at the bottom of the screen) to find three pieces of a phone which are hidden in random holes across a map.  These holes become the centerpiece of the hatred for this game.  "You have to check every one!  Plus climbing out of them is a nightmare!  Once you fall in, you lose health!"  Well, no, you don't actually have to check every hole.  If you stand in a certain spot on each screen where a special symbol appears at the top and press the button, You can see which, if any, holes have a phone piece in them.  Climbing out of the holes is easy if you know how.  When you want to climb out, hold the button and the joystick up.  Once you are floating out of the hole, move to either the left or right side of the hole and you are out.  When you fall in the holes, press the button quickly and lower yourself down to avoid taking damage.
The world is crueler still to poor E.T., as there is a scientist and an FBI agent trying to impede his progress.  The scientist will grab E.T. and drag him to jail, where you can hilariously walk out of as soon as you are put in.  The FBI agent is far more devious though, as he will confiscate one piece of the phone you have worked hard to find.  There is a spot on each screen you can stand to send these two away, but your best bet is usually to run (and then fall in a hole).  The extra-terrestrial is not helpless though.  You can find Reese's Pieces scattered about, which you can trade with Elliot for extra health.  Once he has all of the phone pieces, he must phone home, and then stand in a certain spot so that the alien lander can pick him up.
So this game sounds kind of annoying (to say the least).  Don't worry, it is also buggier than that cave in Temple of Doom.  Glitches ooze out of every crevice of this game.  So, why do I enjoy it?  I suppose it is for the same reason I love bad movies.  Their flaws make them unintentionally hilarious.  The same goes for E.T.  I had one experience in the game where I called Elliot on to the screen, and then when he tried to walk off the bottom of the screen, he got stuck, unable to leave.  The crude sound of his footsteps produced a catchy beat, so he and I held a little informal dance party.  There is a funny bit where if you die, Elliot comes back to resurrect you, and you can still move E.T.'s dead body back and forth.  One of the funniest scenes was when I went to actually complete the game, and just as a got picked up by the ship, I ran out of health.  What followed was an hilarious bit where the carcass of E.T. ascended into the heavens, and then the game stopped because it couldn't figure out where to go from there.  I consider that completion, technically.
I mentioned in my Yar's Revenge article that the programmer of that game, Howard Scott Warshaw, also programmed this one.  With Yar, he proved that he was a competent programmer, so what went wrong with this game?  The fault is entirely on Atari.  They gave Warshaw only six weeks to go from concept to completed product.  To put things in perspective, a typical game on Atari could be expected to spend about three months in production, if not more.  It is a miracle that E.T. runs at all.
Its lasting impact is in what it did to the industry as a whole.  The video game market crash of 1983 was not the single-handed product of the game, but it played a big role.  After that, Nintendo would take careful measures to prevent its first home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, from meeting the same fate.  All consoles after the NES follow its guidelines.  Also, it has a striking influence on games of the next generation.  Its gameplay style of randomly generated items may have led to the modern sandbox titles of today, and its nonlinear gameplay and multiple screen exploration can be seen in games like The Legend of Zelda.  Is it a bad game?  Certainly.  Does that alone make it ineligible to be in the Great Video Games?  I don't believe so.