Pong

It's just Pong. There's no intelligence to it, it's just an abstracted match of ping-pong suited for accessibility, but is a step above computer chess matches in the sense it's a dynamic action game with hit detection and an open invitation to engagement. It doesn't have an AI sadly, so the enjoyment you'll get from it(which still holds, BTW), is dependent from your friend playing. There's even a MAME variant out, so try it out for novelty reasons.

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.

This game is still fun and it will be in 1,000 years. That's not to say it's sophisticated; it obviously isn't. But there is a skill curve and it does (slightly) increase your heartrate when the game gets close. Stop comparing this to Disco Elysium or whatever, have a couple brewskis and play some Pong you hipsters

Made at a time when minimalist game design was the only kind of game design possible, the real question is whether the value of Pong transcends its historical and cultural legacy. In other words, is it actually worth playing?

I say yes. As subsequent generations of games began competing for your attention with increasingly flashy graphics and complex narratives, Pong remained a stalwart in simplicity. I still enjoy the hypnotic quality of the bouncing ball and the piston-like motion of the paddles.

There are games out there that have done even more with less, but it still remains a triumph of efficiency in design. There is a reason that the first few years of the video game industry were dominated by clones of this game.

It's not particularly good of course, dated as it is, but art history has always been a subject of major interest to me, naturally including video games. This game, one of the first in the medium to make a relatively successful breakthrough, is like a time capsule to the beginning stages of video games. It helps establish context for where video games came from and recognize their evolutionary path, in turn making the more modern games all the more enjoyable in how advanced they are. I take note of its influence, though the game is ultimately quite simple and tediously slow.

Completely basic and simple, but what do I expect for something made before my dad was born. Know today mostly for it's historical significance, since it is usually considered the first commercially available video game (it wasn't). I personal use it as a bench mark. If I would rather play Pong than [insert mediocre game here], I probably don't like than [mediocre game].