The Saga of the Atari Landfill, Episode 3: IGN Digs Around in Crap in New Mexico (VIDEO)

Hasn't this been quite the drama? We didn't even know Eighties ballache E.T the Extra-effing-terrestrial was worthy of such coverage, but there it is.

First, to bring you up to speed. A long-held legend of gaming tells that Atari buried thousands of copies of the shit-tastic game in a New Mexico landfill, way back when. In recent weeks, the area was excavated by Zak Penn's team, in the name of his documentary Atari: Game Over. Just last week, they found that it was all true.

The remaining question, then: why in the name of balls would Atari do that? This weekend, IGN were on the case to discover why. Here's their very own Naomi Kyle, reporting from the site in Alamogordo. It's a tale of ‘...thirty years of speculation, legend, horror, and ultimately heavy digging equipment.' Apparently.

Frankly, we'd have thought those ancient Starburst wrappers unearthed in the background were a more interesting find than freaking E.T. Perhaps that's just our fruity flavor fetish talking.

Or perhaps E.T was massively, massively ass.