00:00.
00:06Hi, it's Larry here of Xbox Live's Major Nelson here in White Sands, New Mexico
00:11for possibly one of the strangest stories in video gaming history.
00:16Now over 30 years ago, legend has it, that Atari buried millions of the ET card
00:23for Atari 2600 into a landfill outside of Alamogorda, New Mexico.
00:28Is it true? We're about to find out.
00:32We've got a world-class film crew, a garbologist, and several hundred hardcore gamers
00:37to get to the bottom of this legend.
00:39But it's guarded by rattlesnakes, scorpions, and a dead spaceship.
00:44So, as always, X marks the spot. Let's take a look.
01:16I'm here to document what occurs. So, from the point of view of my film, obviously if we discover that
01:24in fact the ET cartridges are buried here, that's great.
01:27If we discover that there's absolutely nothing here, and this is all some sort of massive conspiracy, that's also great.
01:35Anything in between, not so great. Because if there is nothing here, there's so many witnesses, this is the biggest
01:40hoax in history.
01:43To blame the whole video game crash and the death of Atari on this one game and how hard it
01:49was, or what a crappy game it was, is nonsense and a lie that has been perpetrated on the American
01:55public.
01:56And the world, and people have been parroting this, like you ask people what's the worst video game of all
01:59time, they'll say ET even if they've never played it.
02:01Here we have a game that went through a series of constraints associated with this design.
02:06It's then put on a market as a product, it's taken off the market, it's liquidated, and now, in a
02:11few minutes perhaps, it's going to leap into a different category.
02:15From waste into, I hope, a museum artifact.
02:23Zach is going to tell you a little bit about what we're going to do today and how things are
02:26going to go.
02:27First of all, Zach, welcome.
02:29Thank you.
02:33Actually, welcome to you guys. Thank you for coming out. We really appreciate it.
02:37We are going to start digging in a minute.
02:39Our goal is to find some evidence of the burial of Atari products down here in Almogordo.
02:49We hope we'll find the ET game. We have not found anything yet.
02:54Could be a long day, so buckle up.
03:02Basically, what you're seeing here is an excavation of a landfill.
03:05Because we're working on a very short amount of time, through Sunday, we had to get the excavator in and
03:11to basically do a salvage trench through the middle of where we think the games are.
03:17Because we're working with non-sensitive cultural material, we're actually able to use the bucket loader.
03:21We'll fill them up from each of the different bucket loads that are coming up out of the hole, bring
03:25them over to our sorting tables, and we're going to catalog and sort these objects so that we can see
03:29what's down there, how much of it is there.
03:31What exactly is there? Is it ET? Is it something else? Yeah, we don't know.
03:34Even though this is a story about a mystery, and about a bunch of garbage, there are some great characters
03:40in it too, including Howard Scott Walshaw, who was the designer of the ET video game, the much maligned ET
03:47video game.
03:47When you say unfairly maligned, if a player doesn't enjoy a game, that's a fair malignment. So I'm okay with
03:54that. A lot of people didn't enjoy the game. There were aspects I had trouble with it.
03:57But is it the worst game of all time as a lot of people bill it? I don't think so.
04:02Not really. The thing, honestly, that I am most excited about today is look at this crowd. Look at all
04:06these people around here.
04:07So I did something. I did a little program that I wrote 32 years ago, and today it is still
04:14generating social discourse, media, entertainment, focus. It's all happening, right?
04:20So the fact that something I did that long ago is still creating this much interest, that just makes me
04:26feel good.
04:31Every ten years, I find myself doing something where I'm like, how did I end up here? How did I
04:35end up doing this? How did I end up standing in a pile of garbage?
04:39Okay. Well, you can't hear me. I'm sorry. We found something. I'll take this moment to show everyone. You guys
04:51take a picture. We found an intact ET, the video game.
04:56Yeah!
04:59I don't know if you can see any instructions. The instructions are in there, too. So for those of you
05:07who counted, there's a whole, awful lot more games down there. We just saw them. They're coming out.
05:13E2 is definitely here. You didn't come out here for nothing. And there's a good buzzer. It's always fun. Awesome.
05:24Well, after hours of digging, here it is. This is the very first one to come out of the hole
05:29behind me. We have found it. Urban Legend Confirmed.
05:34There's nothing more to say. The story's been written. Behind me are thousands more, probably still shrink-wrapped with the
05:40instructions, ready to go. But we have confirmed the Urban Legend for today. This is it. The very first one
05:46we pulled out.
05:47Can I take a shower now?
05:48Grazie a tutti e a tutti e a tutti e a tutti e a tutti.
Commenti