E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

The Good
The title screen has a nifty graphic. It otherwise barely resembles the movie (which I've also never liked). There's three difficulty levels you can set it to, with the easiest still being reasonably winnable despite its frustrating flaws.

The Bad
The collision detection at the edges of the pits is just awful: getting out of the pits is an exercise in frustration of almost getting out, then falling back in. Very often this happens right when it changes from the pit screen (side view) to the world screen (top view), not even giving you a chance to compensate for the bad collision detection. Fleeing from enemies is overly tough, in that it's too easy to run yourself right back into a pit (the speed boost is too excessive).

The Bottom Line
I received this game at about 6-1/2 years old along with an Atari Jr. I think my parents picked the game up because it was probably on clearance. Even that young, and with only two other games to start with (Ms. Pac-man and Junglehunt, both far superior), I could tell it was a bad game. Even with the flaws, I could beat game on the easiest difficultly. I eventually returned to the game as a late teen, and beat the hardest difficulty out of pure spite. I've only occasionally played it to show others just how bad the game is. Yes, there are worse games that have been made, but this is the first game that was legendary for being bad, and that counts for something, I guess.