The original Atari 2600 ET game was highly controversial for several reasons.
- First, like movies, the game was one of the first to have a title screen appear before you could play the game.
- It was an 'open-ended' world that was more about exploration than an action game.
- There was a finish. Unlike most video games where you would progress until you lost all of your lives and then restart, you could complete the game after you finished the tasks.
- There are other great aspects of the game, but the game was hated for it's perceived complexity. But in reality, it's not that complex. A read of the manual helps immensely with understanding the game.
- The most 'glaring problem' is that you appear to fall into the wells for no apparent reason. Truth be told, it works correctly, but in the early days of computing, a 3D approach would have been better.
So here is a patch that fixes it. Go to the website below that has the 'fixed' game. You can download the binary and a PDF manual so you can have a bit of retro fun.
For complete instructions and a walkthrough
watch the video below