E.T. cartridges unearthed after 30 years

Atari's darkest hour discovered in the New Mexico desert.

Published 2014-04-27

E.T. was so bad that Atari buried it, literally. Boxes full of cartridges, which have been hidden in the New Mexico desert for many years, were excavated recently, and you can see Major "Larry Hryb" Nelson on site handling one copy of the game.

Up until the dig began, the truth regarding the cartridges was still unknown, with some suspecting it to be an urban myth. Well, that has now been dispelled, after Microsoft - as part of a documentary for Xbox One - unearthed the games that time had almost forgot.

The story is that the game was rushed into production after just weeks of development, and was utterly terrible, with some even going so far as calling it one of the worst games ever made. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was released in 1982, coincidentally just before the bottom fell out of the video game market in North America the following year, with E.T. considered a significant part of the decline of Atari and the video game industry in general. It'd take a little red plumber and his friends to turn up before things started looking better again.

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