It is very uncommon for bad video games to be remade, but Atari's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial defies the odds. Video game fans have been getting more and more remakes in recent years, with updated versions of Demon's Souls and the upcoming Dead Space remake allowing new and returning fans to experience these games on newer consoles. Games that get remade are typically already well-received titles by the gaming community, but the E.T. game does not have the same type of reputation.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was developed in 1982 after the commercial success of the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name. Howard Scott Warshaw was brought on to design and program the game for the Atari 2600, having had success with previous Atari titles like Yars' Revenge and the game adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. After Atari spent between $20-$25 million on the E.T. property rights, Warshaw was only given five weeks to develop the game for Atari to meet a production schedule for Christmas 1982. Atari also opted to skip quality testing for the game after Warshaw finished development, seemingly trusting that the game would be fine after considering the company's and Warshaw's past video game successes.
The final product allowed players to control E.T. from a top-down perspective like The Legend of Zelda. E.T.'s main objective in the game was to evade the FBI and Scientists and collect three different pieces of a interplanetary phone that would allow the alien to call his home planet to extract him from Earth. These phone pieces were randomly found by searching pits located around the map, with E.T. having to maintain a stamina bar that depleted from moving/teleporting/falling into a pit by collecting Reese's Pieces. Once E.T. had been taken back to his home planet, the game would start over with the telephone pieces in different locations.
E.T. Got A Remake, Despite Negative Reception
Ultimately, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a disaster for Atari, with the game only selling 1.5 million of the 4 million units that Atari shipped to retailers. The game was poorly received by critics and fans, with many citing the confusing gameplay, bad graphics for the time, and disappointing story as reasons to not play the game. Some in the gaming community even consider the game to be one of the worst video games of all time. Yet, despite all of these negative factors working against the game, someone decided to remake E.T the Extra-Terrestrial.
In December of 2016, developer James Dunn released a remake of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Windows/PC, available to download for free on Stupendous-Stuff. The remake is basically the same game as the original, but with a change in design where players can enter/exit the pits around the map at the push of a button to eliminate the frustration of traversing the pits in the original. The game also received a bit of a visual upgrade over the original, with more distinguishable environments and a recognizable E.T. design.
Considering the tumultuous history of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the game receiving a remake is a bit surprising. It's likely that not many people want to play a remake of a bad video game, unless their intent is to see if the game was as bad as people said in 1982. Kudos to James Dunn for putting in the time to try and improve aspects of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial that didn't bode well in the original version, giving players a chance to experience one of the most infamously bad games in video game history.
Source: Stupendous-Stuff