Pong

There's not really any way I can ever explain this rating without inviting flak, is there?

Pong is a classic, obviously - it has become the defining emblem of the earliest days of video gaming, and can compete with any other game in existence, be it Tetris or Mario [マリオ] or Grand Theft Auto or Pac-Man, in terms of how deeply it's infected mainstream consciousness. Literally everybody knows what Pong is, which is a hell of an achievement for something that's now 40 years old.

Playing it, though, has always been something of a hellish experience for me. You can hardly blame any of the designers too much for basic this is, but it is outrageously repetitive, to the point where you actually feel dumber for playing it. The sheer lack of any kind of strategy kills it, really - there is an earlier tennis game called Tennis for Two that include a net, simulates the effects of gravity on a ball, and allows the player to control the ball's trajectory with a joystick, and while I've never played anything older than Pong, I have to image that this alone makes them better and more fun to play. And on a game this simple, fun is really is what it's all about. I have literally never had fun playing this - and when I consider that Arkanoid and Space Invaders, both similarly simplistic and of a similar vintage. are still great fun for me now, that means I can't honestly score Pong any higher.