The Wells: How close can we get? (Fun with Mixed Perspectives)

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-et.html

Visit the link above for E.T. manual scans, map, tips and more.

Some people complain that you cannot get close to the wells in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 without falling in, so I made this simple video of E.T. moving around some of the wells to show just how close E.T. can get. All this video shows is how close you can get to the wells without falling in. It does not reflect actual gameplay.

I knew if I didn't have E.T. walk around at least one well on each site, some people would complain or try to say it couldn't be done on every screen, so here it is. E.T. walks around at least one well on each site and if watching 6 minutes of E.T. walking around the wells is too boring, you don't have to watch the whole video. You can skip ahead.

Below is about mixed perspectives and hacking the game so there is collision detection only with his feet:

In a perfect world, it should either be all overhead (like the arcade game Gauntlet) or it should be a platform game where you get a full side view of everything.

Instead, we got a side view of the characters and buildings, but an overhead view of the wells. It's weird that it freaks out so many people when they already played many games with mixed perspectives. The arcade game Pac-Man, the beloved game that everyone and his sister went crazy over, had an overhead view of a maze, but a side view of the characters and they didn't touch each other only when their 'feet' lined up. Games such as Adventure for the Atari 2600 mixed overhead views with side views. And as it says on page 83 of the book 'The video game explosion: a history from PONG to Playstation and beyond', ". . . the practice of mixed perspectives existed long before video games, and appeared in a variety of places including maps, medieval drawings, and chess diagrams."

If it would be possible to have collision detection only with his feet, people would still complain since it would be hard to judge. At least when it's full-body, you get pixel perfect collision detection with no guesswork.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• et
• atari
• 2600
• game
• wells
• pits
• falling

[maiki60fps]

Obviously the problem is that the main character is designed so that normally you would expect that he can only fall when he STEPS IN the hole... which does NOT happen in this game... so yes, the detection is wrong from the game design point of view... detection is correct only for those who see player and playfield pixels... most gamers see a character that has HEAD and LEGS... if it was only HEAD from above, then maybe... the game should be reprogrammed with his HEAD/body being non-colliding

[Replayability]

@maiki60fps My reply was too long, so I put it in the description.

[Zeoxis6]

is that little pixel between his legs a dick?

[Replayability]

Yes, Zeoxis6. And his neck isn't the only thing that stretches to an amazing length.

[mystiefan33]

what were you smoking when you did this?????

[Replayability]

The dried brains of newborn babies.

[ReverendSyn]

Why all the negs? The man is entitled to his opinon. If he had said "People who hate this game are fag0ts", THEN you might have an excuse to neg.

He didnt say anyone else had to love it. He just spoke for himself. Really isnt terribly fair to neg a harmless opinion just because you don't agree.

To each his own, people.

[randomguy316]

best graphics ever lol

[jdigitalseven]

I remember playing this and having no clue on what to do.....By the time I played it (I was born in 82) we didnt have the manual to it, so there was no help.

[Herbarius]

E.T. in fact IS one of those games. If you manage to "finish" it you can start over and after you finished the second time, the game will add both your scores together. This is cumulative, as long as you don't fail, you can pile up your score higher and higher (of course at some point it'll roll back to 0, but most the other games you talked about do that as well, and those who don't have a maximum score you cannot supercede).

[KillWario]

I personally think it would be better to just play one of the Atari games that you get a high score on, one of the never ending one.

[thenamecolinwastaken]

You're, what? 12?

See back before you were born (even before 1997 in other words), people used to play different types of games. They weren't 3D, and they weren't many hours long. We liked them plenty. Length of a game has little meaning pre-1986 or so.

Anyway, even "Adventure" wasn't really long. The point about it and E.T. though was that they are different everytime. Thus, although you might finish E.T. in five minutes on a good game, the next game will be totally different.

[KillWario]

I have to ask you to think. ET can be compleated in two minutes and the game cost upwords of 50 dollers. Even if you like it, is it realy worth it?

[shadowmario580]

people who hate this game are nerds