Aliens at the Beach

This blog used to be called Aliens in the Desert.  Here’s why.

It all started waaaay back in 2004 with an article by Seanbaby that I read in EGM. “The 20 Worst Video Games of All Time”. And there, at the very top of this pile of abominable rubbish, was E.T. the Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600.  I’m sure this was not a shiningly brilliant insight on Seanbaby’s part (or maybe it was, who knows?) but this was the first time I had encountered this game in this kind of context.  I grew up with an Atari 800, but my family had never been cursed with a copy of the infamous game.  Since that time, and especially as time goes on, I have noticed E.T. for the 2600 becoming more and more firmly entrenched in gamer culture as, in fact, the worst game ever made.

But of course, what makes E.T. really stand in the imagination — both mine and increasingly others — is the fact that E.T. wasn’t just the worst game of all time.  It was SO BAD that  millions of copies of this game (along with the embarrassingly terrible Pac-Man 2600 port from the same time) were buried in a New Mexico landfill. Reading about this in EGM, a mysterious gamer legend spread out before me. Somewhere, in the deserts of New Mexico, lay 5 million copies of the worst game ever made. The idea tickled my fancy at the time, and a month or so later had so filled my consciousness that   I made the decision that I would find this site, and excavate this terrible tribute to gaming’s darker side.

My first stop was Seanbaby’s web-site, to find the digital version of his EGM article. (Its still a fun read, if you can deal with the barrage of swearage). My excitement mounted when I saw the link at the bottom that took me to a more detailed account of the E.T. story. Unfortunately, this page filled me in on the sad fact that not only were these cartridges REALLY buried, they were also REALLY crushed by a steam-roller and then REALLY covered with cement.

Further research turned up a (tiny) New York times article from the burying in question, which confirmed the smashing and interring of the cartridges.  ”To prevent looting”.  Looting of the WORST GAMES EVER MADE!

My obsession did not waver, but I turned my goal from actually digging up the cartridges to maybe finding the exact site and erecting a monument of some kind.  A friend of mine from Georgia Tech was really excited about this and wanted to make a documentary about my attempts at this weird (but to me important) mission.  We even submitted a project proposal for funding, although we never heard back about it.

Since that time, many things in my life have changed.  I have a daughter and a husband and responsibilities that keep me from running off to New Mexico on some crazy impulse.  The time and money it would take to see this project through don’t feel available to me at this second in time.  The landscape of the legend keeps changing as well.  The E.T. mystery has gone from a teeny kitschy interest to being so ensconced in gamer lore, I’m shocked no one else has dug up the cartridges yet.  Most of my own research to discover the exact location of the site has run into dead ends.  If I had the time or resources, I would try harder.  But other things are taking my time at the moment.

But who knows….maybe someday….?

There are some posts on this blog, going back to 2004, about my mission with E.T.  Read the ones in the E.T. category, and you’ll see where I was at with this.

In 2011, we moved to Santa Cruz and I renamed the blog Aliens at the Beach.  Because it was time for a change.

Some links:

Apparently there was someone who didn’t actually return the cartridge.