So, it was true after all. We reported last summer than mystery surrounded the burial of a bunch of Atari’s ill-fated ET game in the New Mexico desert.
It all seemed a bit far-fetched at the time but a dig at the supposed burial site turned up lots of old Atari cartridges. Yes, our old buddy with the big head and the urgent desire to make a phone call was there along with other games.
The discovery was made by a group of people described as “video game archaeologists”. This is a type of career we have never come across before but it sounds kind of interesting. Maybe it is the kind of thing you can study at university these days.
It Certainly Sounded Like an Urban Myth
Anyway, many people were convinced that the story of these dumped games was an urban myth and, to be fair, it sure sounded like one. The theory was that Atari got rid of millions of unsold games about 3 decades ago in Alamogordo.
The ET game is generally described as one of the worst video games ever made. Atari made millions of copies of it but it sold so badly that it has been partly blamed for the games firm’s financial collapse.
The recent dig out in the desert was done for a documentary which is being made for the Microsoft Xbox TV channel. 3 hours worth of digging turned up a large amount of old cartridges for Atari 2600 games.
Did you ever play ET or any other old Atari 2600 games?
image courtesty of ign
