Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Lorace Dem This is a very riveting documentary that tells the grand story of the rise and fall of Atari via highlighting it's worst game. I remember playing Atari as a child, and some of my favorite atari games, such as Adventure, are featured in the film. I almost wish it touched further on some of the good atari games, such as pitfall.I also played the E.T. game and unlike the lionizing voices at the end of this doc, I do still think it deserves to be called one of the worst ever. That I can now empathize with the game's maker does not diminish the fact that the game was overly simplistic, boring, and one-note. That is the major weakness of this film, as it attempts to redeem the game itself and even bring up insulting explanations about the game not being liked on account of being 'too difficult.' As a young child I usually could beat it in about ten minutes, but there were no additional levels to explore afterwards. It wasn't difficult, but just bad.

Scarecrow-88 Neat little doc on the supposed urban myth regarding a massive Atari game dump in a New Mexico town's landfill after the game company's end. Falsely accused for the demise of the Atari company was the ET game, made in five weeks after a crunch unrealistically asking a video game designer to make a remotely good game in such limited time. This doc focuses on the unearthing of the games in the landfill, with those who love Atari (and want the ET game's notoriety to be disregarded) being responsible for the whole big "archeological dig". If you grew up like I did with Atari, this will be of definite nostalgic value; for the generation hung up on Call of Duty and Halo, this might not be as interesting. To see where it all began, and to have experienced it (and just to be an 80s kid in all its awesomeness), this doc, not long at all and focusing intently on Atari with a sort of loving and sadness for its rise and fall, could be quite a lot of fun. It was for me.What happened to Warshaw, ET's designer, is tragic and should never have blacklisted him so. His game was used as an excuse for the death of a beloved company when a number of other factors contributed to it. That it took this long for Warshaw's name to be cleared is unfortunate, but this dig resurrected his name, and those coming to his aid is satisfying. That so many showed up for the dig was a testament to what nostalgia and curiosity can assure.

Erich Stein The movie kept me amused from beginning to end. It was filled with great facts and interviews from the awesome people at Atari. The creative staff was successful to bravely call it as they saw it - unlike the filtered and censored media for people who ca not handle the truth.Heartwarming interview with the main programmer for "E.T." explains how to successfully transition from the world's most successful game programmer, into a life which can continue to reward to avoid what otherwise attacks many people in a downward tragic spiral of depression.The movie was also successful to reveal the greedy position the city imposes that disguises their evil methods claiming to uphold public safety.If you are careful with the pause and rewind keys on your DVR, you can catch some very interesting photography that flips by too fast.

Steve Pulaski If you're into retro video games, or in the video gaming community in general, there's little chance you haven't heard of the widespread story of the video game crash of 1983, which lead to Atari, one of the most recognized and popular video game companies of the time, losing millions in revenue and causing the entire industry to almost collapse as a whole. The crash was eventually attributed to numerous different things, such as inflation and, most notably, the oversaturation of the home console market because nearly every technology company tried to create its own video game console, yet one myth still stands tall amongst the truth. That myth is that the video game crash was because of Atari's video game adaptation of E.T., a video game that is widely considered to be the worst video game ever made.Such a compelling and unorthodox story owes itself to be covered in a documentary, and thankfully, there's Zak Penn's Atari: Game Over, a sixty-six minute documentary available for free on Microsoft's Xbox 360 video application. The documentary works to establish the story of Atari's rise to fame before it all came crashing down in the early-to-mid eighties, as well as articulate the real reason for the company's financial troubles instead of reiterating the common myth. In addition, Penn covers the fabled story of the cartridge burial in the Alamogordo landfill in New Mexico.For years, rumor has had it that hundreds of unsold E.T. cartridges were buried deep in the Alamogordo landfill before being smothered by a thick layer of concrete. Spliced in between interviews with people close to Atari, and those who worked for the company during its heyday, Penn covers the excavation of the landfill, as he works with the landfill's employee Joe Lewandowski. Lewandowski is almost certain that beneath the surface of the dump lies the cartridges so much so that he has created an intricate map that reveals the location of where they'd be.One of the souls interviewed during the film is Howard Scott Warshaw, who was a video game programmer and creator for Atari during its rise, creating the console's classic games like Yars Revenge and the video game adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Warshaw was also tasked with creating the aforementioned E.T., a task he was only given five weeks to complete because Atari wanted a presumably hot title for the forthcoming holiday season. Warshaw tirelessly worked to try and complete the game, but the end result was a game that was widely panned for its cryptic, often frustrating structure and layout among other serious problems. Following E.T.'s release, Atari experienced enormous profit declines, a fact later attributed to not only the oversaturation of the video gaming market but because Atari kept funneling advertising money in their flagship console, the Atari 2600, in a time where it commanded the market share and the next generation consoles were already on their way. Warshaw, among over 7,000 other employees, were eventually let go in the mid-eighties, following continuously abysmal performances and small profits.Atari: Game Over chronicles all this in a delightfully compelling manner, giving us history and the contemporary excavation in a way that will not only please fans of video games but anyone looking for a quirky, offbeat story. Penn is also careful to note why Atari and the video gaming industry are so significant in the world, affirming the idea that the early video gaming consoles turned the Television, a once exclusively passive medium, into an active medium, where one could control their actions and enter alternate worlds with untold possibilities, only limited by one's imagination. In addition, it's also nice to see some affirmation of E.T.'s legacy and quality rather than harping on mindlessly-uttered derogatory statements concerning the game's quality. Humbly emotional scenes come when Warshaw, who now works as a psychotherapist, discusses the imprint E.T. has had on him during his presence at the landfill's excavation and we see the effect one's panned art has had on him over the years. It's a tender scene in a very well done documentary.Directed by: Zak Penn.