Subject: E.T. Easter egg revealed at BAVE meeting!

Well, for all of you who missed yesterday's BAVE meeting--which is about 99.5% of the people reading this newsgroup, I suspect--you missed quite a special meeting.

For those who don't know, BAVE stands for bay area videogame enthusiasts, a loose collection of geeks and collectors who meet in the sf bay area every month to trade games and whatever.

Anyway, Clint Dyer, the host of this month's meeting, had arranged for a special guest to show up--none other than Atari 2600 game designer Howard Scott Warshaw!

After entertaining us with tales of the early Atari and the creation of his games Yars Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. (which we gave him a bit of a ribbing about) I asked about easter eggs in his games. Practically everyone knows how to make his initials appear in Yars Revenge, but what about Raiders and E.T.?

He confirmed that both a Yar and the initials "HSW2" appear in Raiders, but he couldn't remember quite how it was done. Something about having the correct three objects and digging on the correct mesa or something. But when it came to E.T., his memory was jogged sufficiently to reveal not one, not two, but three easter eggs! We popped in an E.T. cartridge and he showed us how to find it. here's how:

Do this on game version 3, which is the easiest, since it has no scientist or FBI agent. Have E.T. collect 7 reese's pieces and then give them to Elliot. Find all three pieces of the phone, then fall into the well with the flower.

Walk up to the flower--just to the right of the flower is the "smiley face zone." Yes, a smiley face will appear in the top bar. When you get to the smiley face zone, press the fire button. The flower will turn into a Yar and fly away! Call home, get picked up by your spaceship, and repeat the above for the next round.

An Indiana Jones will appear this time.

For the third round, after doing all of the above steps, the initials "HSW3" will appear in the lower bar.

There's one rub though. If you discover the flower in the well before you have all three pieces of the phone put together, it won't work.

So there you have it! Is it any wonder no one ever discovered this easter egg on their own?

- adrian@sirius.com