Forget Call of Duty, Real Men Need the Retro Love: Pong

Holy balls, it's Pong! This decrepit slice of shite from the seventies is the very last word in retro gaming. Buckle up, all, shield your eyes from its visual splendor, and let's take a closer look at this craptastic relic.

Pong was released in 1972, one of the first chunky cabinet games to hit the world's dismal, foul-smelling arcades. It's a sports game (well, it's vaguely recognizable as table tennis if you squint a bit/have eyes like Mr. Magoo) with a hugely convoluted, Da Vinci Code-esque asspain of a plot.

Except not, obviously, that last part. This is a simple tale of good versus evil, of righteousness versus bastardry, of... two identical vertical paddles and an odd square ‘ball.' These, plus the good ol' calculator-style score display at the top of the screen, are all you need. Plots? Storylines? Cutscenes? Who has time for that sort of balls? Nobody, that's who. Screw it.

But anywho. Whether you're a pensioner or a trendy young dude with your sneakers, floppy fringe and pop music, you know Pong. Playing as what appears to be a skinny white erection, you must strike the ball back towards your opponent's boner (so to speak), volleying until one of you fails to return it. Whereupon, a point is scored. Play continues until there's a winner or one of you realizes how utterly piss-poor Pong is and quits.

Well, by contemporary standards. But then, that's how it is. You don't see gamers gathered around ancient arcade machines in 2013, remarking on the sextacular graphics of Asteroids, or the finely nuanced storyline of Pac-Man. ("There's this little yellow mouth-dude, y'see, in a maze, and some ghosts want to EAT HIS FACE. It's genius, I tell you.") Nor would you expect to. All of these old bastards are part of gaming history, and have had all manner of spangly rereleases.

After all, Pong is now a release title for PlayStation 4 (kinda sorta, via a PlayRoom minigame). You can't argue with that kind of lasting legacy. Now, feast your wondering, slightly bloodshot eyeballs on this footage from 1969. The moon landing had nothing on THIS.