(Part 4 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can read their fourth review here)

Once upon a time, in the glorious and wonderful year that was 1972, there was a little video game that was released called Pong, which was a very simple game about two paddles bouncing a ball back and forth between each other until one managed to score a goal on another. It is probably the simplest video game that we have ever gotten in the history of ever, and yet, despite this, it BLEW UP back in the day. The simple gameplay was just effective enough to where it would attract the attention and money of millions, to the point where despite how simple the game is, it would live on all the way to this very day, with different types of games being released that would update the formula and switch it up in many ways, such as one game that just turned Pong into an RPG. However, before any of those other, creative takes on the formula would come out, people back in the day saw this simple game and got dollar signs in their eyes, to where they needed to capitalize on this simple idea and copy the fuck out of it to ensure they could also have a piece of that Pong pie as well, leading to us getting a fuck-ton of Pong conversions that most people either haven’t played or don’t even know exist.

If you couldn’t tell at this point, this review is gonna be slightly different then all of the other ones that I have done in the past. Rather than solely focusing on one game and talking about it for a good number of paragraphs or so, we are instead going to be taking a look at all of the different Pong clones and conversions that were released in 1973, because trust me, there’s a LOT more of these than you think there are. Most of you might think this is a completely unnecessary thing to do, and a MASSIVE waste of time, but I dunno, something about these Pong clones does intrigue me, making me want to see just how exactly developers were able to take this simple game, expand upon it, and potentially make the game better for players around that time…………. that, or they probably copied the game, slapped a new name on it, and called it a day. I won’t know until I fully check it out, so HERE WE GO!

To keep things consistent, I am just gonna go down the list of games released in 1973 according to Backloggd, so if I miss anything that may have been released back then, naturally, blame the website, not me. So, to kick things off, we have Soccer by Taito, with this actually being the third video game they ever made. I couldn’t find any video footage of the game, but based on some info I read on the web, along with some screenshots, it is essentially just pong with two additional paddles on the sides, meant to represent the goalie, a green background, and even the ability to change the size of the paddles to switch up the difficulty. It sounds like a pretty basic switch-up of the typical pong formula with not that much else going on, but the extra paddle on each side would add an extra layer to the gameplay to make things somewhat more tough, and I do like the idea of being able to change the paddles’ size to “spice things up”. Also, this is apparently the first video game to use a trackball controller, so that is pretty neat.

After that, we have Winner, the first game to ever be made by Midway, and it is more or less just a direct clone of the original game. Based on what I could find online and from this video, the only real difference I can see between the two is that they removed the dashed line in the middle of the screen to separate the paddles…. that’s it. What’s even weirder about this one is that this version of the game was actually licensed by Atari themselves, so that begs the question, why even bother with making another version of the game with a different name if you are gonna change practically NOTHING about it? Fear not though, fellow Pong enthusiasts, because this game actually managed to get a sequel, oddly titled Winner IV, which released later that year, and it featured 4-PLAYER MULTIPLAYER, with two paddles on each side of the screen, and having one person controlling each separate paddle! Now THAT’S the kind of innovation that I was looking for, and I imagine this must’ve been one of the best versions of pong that you could play back in the day, while also subsequently getting pissed off at your teammate when they let the other team get a point by being a dumbass.

Next, we have Hockey by RamTek, a company that you have probably never heard of before, who put their own spin on things by having you control THREE paddles all at once, two that are lined up with each other on the screen, and one more in the back that acts as a goalie. This would be a cool mechanic and all, but the problem with it is that, as you can see in this video here, for some reason, your paddles are placed in front of your own goal, which means that you will most likely end up hitting the ball back into your own goal, making for probably the worst possible conversion of the game that we got so far. Seriously, it’s fucking Pong, not rocket science, so how the hell do you mess something like that up?! (Quick side note here, I couldn’t find any info on Paddle Battle, so I can’t tell how that one is different to any other version of this game, so Imma skip that one. Hope that doesn’t anger anyone, or make them wanna murder my goldfish.)

Thankfully though, we can get away from that mess of an iteration with Pong-Tron, the first video game ever to be made by Sega, which was…….. basically just another version of Pong that had a different name. Yeah, things don’t get too crazy with this version of the game, but if I were to bring up a theory as to why that is, it was probably just for them to test the waters a bit, because whenever they made Pong-Tron II, THAT was when shit got real! Naturally, it features the same basic Ponging action that you have come to expect, but there is also apparently a switch on the machine that allows you to play a one-player version of the game, where you just simply hit the balls into the goal to see how many points you get. It is a nice little feature to add, and it’s good for those lonely fuckers who can’t get anywhere by just simply playing with themselves all the time………….. Wait-

We should probably get back to the main Pong professionals though, just so that we can not only get away from all these CHEAP imitations, but also to see what they can do to expand on the Pong formula. They attempt at this by bringing us Pong Doubles!.......... which is just four-player pong. Again. Yeah, sorry Atari, but it looks like Midway beat you to the punch on that one just barely, even though I do appreciate the effort. To make you feel better, I’ll at least give you some recognition by putting up this video here, just so that everyone can see your GLORIOUS action-packed Pong game in action. While they are occupied with that though, we gotta move onto Leader now, which is probably the best four-player conversion of the classic game that we have so far. Rather than having two teams with two players a piece bouncing the ball back and forth with each other, now it is an all-out free for all, with each player taking up one side of the screen, and bouncing the ball all around towards each other to see who will reign supreme. If I were to have been alive back in 1973, this probably would’ve been the version of the game that I gravitated towards the most, just because of all the… ahem, “chaos” that could’ve transpired from this set up, and I’m sure plenty of people ate it up back then to. Also, here is a little video I found that shows off what the game could’ve potentially looked like……… you know, if it could work properly.

You feeling burnt out yet? Yeah, I get that feeling. Ponging around all over the place like this would definitely take a lot out of someone who isn’t mentally prepared for it. Don’t worry, we are over half-way there, so it shouldn’t take us too much longer to get through the rest of these games. So let’s go ahead and keep this train a-rollin’ with Super Soccer, which has a similar set-up to Hockey where each player is controlling three different paddles at once rather then just one or two. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any footage or images of this game online, so I can’t tell if this game manages to pull off this conversion in a better or worse fashion then the previous game. I’m just gonna assume that they managed to somehow flub this up even worse, considering that the guys that made this also made Paddle Battle, which I also couldn’t find much info on, meaning that these guys probably REALLY sucked at their job…………. or not enough people care enough to preserve their legacy, I dunno.

Thankfully though, now we have a bit of a change of pace with Tennis Tourney, yet another Pong conversion by the Paddle Battle creators, except this time now you can switch between two-player Pong matches and four-player ones…………. and that’s about it. It’s nothing all that exciting, especially considering all of the other versions of the game we have just covered, but I do like how you can swap between those options, which I imagine would’ve been pretty useful for those who only had access to this version of the game and nothing else. Things don’t get too much better though with Elepong, which is, yet again, another standard Pong clone with no changes or enhancements made to it. I mean, I guess I could let it slide, considering this one is Taito’s first video game they ever made, but I am actually starting to go a little insane from all this ponging. So, just for the sake of ending my suffering, as well as your all’s, I’ll just briefly go over the final game we have here, Hockey TV, which is just yet another version of Pong where you control two paddles at once. Again, Sega, I appreciate the effort y’all are putting in here, but Atari and Midway already beat ya to it, and you’re putting me to sleep here…… even more so than actual hockey does.

And with that, those are all of the different Pong conversions that were released back in 1973……….. at least, according to Backloggd. While this was definitely a giant waste of time, it was somewhat interesting to go back and look at all these different versions of the same game, just to see how these many different companies would try to mooch off of Pong’s success, as well as how they would manage to further enhance the gameplay to attract old and new players back for more. Of course, nothing is gonna top the original classic game by any means, but it is at least neat to see these other Pong variants in action, as well as to try them out whenever you get the chance, just to see how much they managed to milk this cow before it ended up dying in the process. And to those of you out there in the Backloggdverse who are somehow still reading this after all those links and words I just threw at you, thanks for tuning into yet another pretty experimental “review” of mine that I wanted to try out. I am probably not gonna do another one of these kinds of reviews in a long-ass time, or maybe even ever, but let me know what you thought of it and if you’d like to see more reviews like this. Now, if you excuse me, I am gonna go pour bleach into my eyes, so that hopefully I can get the image of pong paddles moving around out of my head.

Game #WhyMustReploidsFight