'E.T.,' 'Krull,' 'Gremlins,' and 'Porky's': When Every Movie Was an Atari Game

'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982)

Atari’s legendarily awful adaptation of the Spielberg smash hit was sentenced to a pit in the New Mexico desert for the crime of being an unplayable affront to its source material. The idea behind this top-down adventure was to collect and assemble three objects to “phone home.” With graphics anything but cinematic and gameplay far from scintillating, 'E.T.’ failed in every possible way.

While 'E.T.’ deservedly got the bulk of the bad PR, this Spielberg adaptation was almost as wretched. Heck, getting your heart ripped out 'Temple of Doom’-style was preferable to this perplexing, eye-straining adventure — made all the worse compared to rival Activision’s perfect 'Pitfall.’

Fox Video Games created this Atari cartridge, which was essentially 'Pac-Man’ with multicolored Xenomorphs replacing the ghosts and a flamethrower in place of fruit snacks. While it doesn’t deliver the thrills of the film, at least it’s better than the actual 2600 port of 'Pac-Man.’

Who’d have thought a 1966 B-movie would make an A-caliber game? Like the flick, you and your ship have been miniaturized and injected into a patient’s blood stream to battle bad bacteria. But we’re not sure it’s anatomically correct.

A building that vaguely resembles the Empire State Building, a Fay Wray-esque imperiled heroin, a hero that may pass for Bruce Cabot… Who are we kidding, this Kong is more Donkey than King; but give Tigervision credit for finding a creative way to avoid paying Nintendo for the license.

This home version of the classic arcade game recreates Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing assault on the Death Star from the first 'Star Wars’ film. The simple 3D vector graphics translated well to the 2600. All in all, the Force was with this game.

This 'Defender’-esque game puts you on Hoth, with only your outgunned snowspeeder between Echo Base and waves of relentlessly marching AT-ATs. Like the other early 'Star Wars’ games this was a notch above other movie adaptations. And dig those groovy colors.

Channel your inner Han Solo (or Lando Calrissian) and pilot the Millennium Falcon against the second Death Star while avoiding the Imperial Navy. Once you succeed, do it again… over and over again. But at least the graphics were better than most movie games.

Based on Disney’s seminal 'Fantasia’ sequence, the Mickey-powered, kid-targeted cartridge features strong graphics but weak gameplay. On the plus side, it’s better than that Nic Cage movie.

As the titular hero you must throw the titular discs and hit the bad guys before they hit you with theirs. Later (and better) 'Tron’ games featured light cycle duels and a showdown with the MCU.

Ideal for those late-night smoke sessions with Ted and Marky-Mark, this game features split-screen action with a spacehip fight on top and maze-like map on the bottom. The only thing that could make this game better would be the Queen soundtrack.

Solid graphics, four challenging levels, a plot that makes sense. The rare instance of an Atari game actually being better than its source material.

Good god, there was even a 'Porky’s’ game. You need to complete a 'Frogger’-style level, vault through a swamp, survive the girls’ shower room, and then blow up the bar. As far as we know, this was the only 2600 that featured a showering girl.

Before 'Grand Theft Auto,’ 'Mortal Kombat,’ or 'Doom’ this was the game that freaked out parents.

Wizard’s other slasher game adapted John Carpenter’s classic, where you’re the babysitter trying to rescue the kids from a knife-wielding Michael Myers. With all the blood-spurting action missing from 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’

Aside from the intro theme music, we’re still trying to figure out what this game, which seems to involve a spaceship, helicopters, and volcanoes, has to do with James Bond. Unless it was a SPECTRE plot to hijack our TVs and turn us into a nation of zombified couch potatoes. Nah, that would never work.

Activision’s game featured three distinct modes: a map screen to navigate the Ecto-1 to a ghost infestation; a driving screen; and the battle screen, where gamers tried to trap Slimer or elude Stay Puft. Remember to cross the streams!

This uninspired take on the hit flick features the gamer as movie hero Billy (sporting an odd coif) catching Mogwai (to keep them from eating hamburgers) in a ripoff of 'Kaboom!’ The next level rips off 'Space Invaders,’ as Billy repels waves of evil gremlins.