Imagine if this was the cause of the video game crash. Would we ever recover?
A PlayStation game released in 2002 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Interplanetary Mission was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by NewKidCo. The back of the cover says that E.T. is on a journey to save the universe, but the last level contradicts this by acting more like a prequel to the E.T. movie, making the plot conflicting. Given that this was a late release on the PlayStation (the PS2 was already out for more than a year by then), there really should be no excuse for the very muddy graphics. The camera moves faster than you, and does so a lot. Going up ramps is also an issue because you could never be sure if E.T. is facing it (mind you, the game is set on an isometric plain). This is disorienting level design. At one instance you try to avoid enemies, but after winning a level, the same enemies join you in a victory dance, which is contradictory NPCs. There's little to no explanation as to how to deal with bosses. For instance, the game claims you have to use rams to fight a giant yeti, but they don't tell you you have to stun the rams and shoot the yeti with them. In terms of sound, it's little to nothing. During the levels, at most you'd just hear E.T. talk (saying "ow" when collecting items, saying "Be good" at the beginning of each level and saying his name, seriously, when he dies). The game is little more than a cash-in on E.T. becoming relevant again for the period. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial had the excuse of coming out while the movie was fairly new, and even then it was revealed that the people involved had little time to fully polish the game. Come to think of it, did anyone even ask for another E.T. game? As a consequence, the game became relatively obscure, a fate that's well justified. No joke, this is literally worse than the original E.T. video game. It can't phone home now that it's gone into hiding.