Legend Confirmed: Atari 2600 'E.T.' Game Discovered at New Mexico Dig

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Workers dig up cartridges of the Atari E.T. game in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Saturday, April 26, 2014.

Image: Mashable, Katharine Egli

By Adario Strange2014-04-26 19:55:11 UTC

After decades of video game lore surrounding a supposed treasure trove of discarded E.T. game cartridges from the '80s, on Saturday an excavation crew in Alamogordo, New Mexico uncovered the truth.

Breaking through huge mounds of dirt, concrete and refuse, the crew, which began setting up the dig on Thursday, unearthed the proof of what was once only urban legend: Atari 2600 cartridges for the E.T. video game buried in the desert.

See also: Unearthing E.T.: A Legendary Atari Mystery Finally Gets Closure

Surrounded by several hundred game fans and media reporters, on site to record the event, workers revealed the last remnants of the Atari 2600 video game adaptation of the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Hours before the discovery, gamers who had traveled to witness gaming history fired up their own Atari 2600 consoles to play the classic E.T. game.

Game fans play the Atari E.T. game while waiting for the results of the dig in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Saturday, April 26, 2014.

Image: Mashable, Katharine Egli

Working at the behest of Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios, on hand to shoot the event for a documentary about the video game legend, the excavation team, led by local garbage contractor Joe Lewandowski, took hours to finally show off what was left of Atari's epic video game failure.

That failure — up to 3.5 million game cartridges were thought to have been dumped at the site — may be the most fascinating thing about the story of Atari's E.T. game. Most who have played the game agree that it was terrible.

But despite the game's subpar quality, it's attachment to a beloved science fiction movie and the almost "Area 51" style burying of the game in New Mexico has only added to its legend.

Then there's the fact that the game — about a stranded space alien pursued by the U.S. government — was buried in Alamogordo, New Mexico, just a couple of hours drive from Roswell, the city famous for what many believe to be a 1947 UFO crash, and a major government cover-up.

A replica of the E.T. character at the scene of the dig site hours before the discovery of game cartridges in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Saturday, April 26, 2014.

Image: Mashable, Katharine Egli

But aside from the odd coincidences and tantalizing conspiracy theories, for many video game geeks what the E.T. game really represents is a cautionary tale about the perils of trying to rush out a game too quickly to cash in on a blockbuster movie and then having to literally bury the mistake.

The E.T. game was not just bad, but by most accounts, almost unplayable. How bad was it? Thankfully, some in the gaming community have uploaded footage (see below) of the game to show exactly how poor the experience was.

The Alamogordo, New Mexico find finally brings closure to a story that has circulated as rumor within gaming circles for several decades.

However, for Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios, the dig not only represents the end of 30 years of video game history, but also the wrap up of production on what the two companies hope will be a compelling visual story.

Directed by Zak Penn (X-Men 2, Avengers, and Incident at Loch Ness)

and produced by Simon and Jonathan Chinn, the film about the Atari E.T. game dig will be the first in a series of documentaries slated to appear exclusively on Xbox.

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Topics: Apps and Software, atari, Atari 2600, Entertainment, Gadgets, Gaming, xbox 360