Don't underestimate the power of Pong.
This game definitely isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but it’s got the features it needs to make it worth playing With two player support via Xbox Live, System Link and locally with online global scoreboards, this is packed. There are two modes of play. Retro and Advanced. The WAY their played is no different from each other. A ball is served, and you bounce it back at your opponent, and if he or she doesn’t do the same you score a point. Simple stuff. But the more often the ball bounces, the faster it goes. That’s when it starts getting tough. When you select a mode, you set how many points are needed to score in order to win. But there’s a difference in that between the two modes. In retro mode, however many points you set is how many points you need to win. I’m thinking that you can set the points from 1 to 999, but 5 to 20 would be enough for me. In Advanced mode however, the score limit you set is the limit your opponent has to set on YOU. You can potentially score infinitely. Which is honestly the best mode of the two.
Unfortunately, in any of the multiplayer options the Retro mode is the only one you can play, which is a little bit of a disappointment given the interesting scoring of Advanced. Although you can play by yourself in Local multiplayer, which I have a feeling is something that I’m going to do a lot of just because I think it’s fun.
Graphically, I mean … it’s Pong. Black and white with scores and a countdown when it serves the ball. The big thing here is the collision detection which is actually as good as it’s supposed to be. Sound is the same deal. It sounds like a plastic ball hitting things, and that’s about all you’ve got. But there is custom soundtrack support if you wanna rock out to Pink Floyd or somethin’ while you play the game. I don’t have any MP3′s on my system, so that’s out for me. :) Something that’s only in the full version of the game that’s really neat are two screensavers, you click the left trigger and it removes the menu and just shows that cool animation that’s behind it. And you click the right stick and it goes into a demo mode where the computer plays itself.
The gameplay is perfect to me because it’s so simple. It’s what makes games like these work. It works for Pong, it works for Pac-Man and Frogger and all those other old school games. You move a paddle up and down and smack a ball back at your opponent. That’s it. But the challenge gets to where the paddle only moves at a certain top speed, which is in my opinion a little slow, but not having the old trackball or Atari 2600 Paddle controller manages to complicate things in controlling it. But this does a good job with the paddles, the thing may not move that fast, but it won’t be too long where you can pretty much predict where the ball is going to go and be there long before it gets there. I’m STARTING to get the hang of it.
Now the bad … which I’ve pretty much already stated. The only multiplayer option is the Retro mode. I would’ve loved to see the Advanced mode in multiplayer to be honest. And more than two modes of play. I honestly don’t know how that would work, but maybe something as simple as being able to shove the paddle forward to make the ball go faster. And 200 points for the game is a bit much in my opinion, but this is also going off Microsoft’s old pricing structure.
6.0 – You really have to be in a certain mood to play Pong. I, for one, am in that mood constantly because I like very simple games that you can go in, play for a few minutes and leave. Not being able to play the Advanced mode in multiplayer is a bit of a disappointment. But the fact it’s got online multiplayer PERIOD is awesome and I wish there were people to play it with. And global scoreboards help out a lot too, because I see that top score of 21 on there and I look at my puny 7 that I got earlier and think “Alright, dammit. I’m going to get this.” At 200 points right now, it’s a hard sell. But, like I said, this is with Microsoft’s old pricing structure for the Indie Games. If it drops down to 80 points, add one full point to my overall review score and call this a must buy for someone looking for something to kill time with every now and then with something that’s really simple and easy to play and get into. And if you do buy this game, get ahold of me so we can play some games over Xbox Live. :)
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