Video Olympics

"Pong at its absolute finest."

Like Tetris, Pong has a kind of classic simplicity that marks it as a classic for all time. One of the first videogames ever created (not the first, however, as most people believe), Pong has earned its place in our cultural vocabulary. When I think of Pong, I imagine the early 1980s, the Video Age: the rise of MTV, cable television, and of course the first golden age of home videogames. Pong is interactive entertainment at its simplest, most undiluted state. Plus it’s kinda fun.

The original Pong was based on a fairly simple and straightforward system of rules. In fact, I believe that Pong is responsible for our modern vision of what videogaming is: playing in a universe whose rules are established and maintained by a computer. In Pong, the pixilated “ball” is in a state of constant motion, ignoring the laws of thermodynamics that are immutable in the “real” universe. When the ball hits one of the paddles, it ricochets off at an angle determined by a set of variables including the angle of approach and the position of impact on the paddle. And of course when the ball misses a paddle and impacts against the side of the screen, a point is registered for the player whose paddle occupies the opposite side of the screen. That’s about it. I bet you didn’t realize that that dusty cartridge at the back of your closet contained an entire universe, did you? And all of that universe’s natural laws can be described in a paragraph.

Video Olympics for the Atari 2600 is the single greatest iteration of Pong. In Video Olympics we see what happens when the laws of the Pong universe are altered. Video Olympics is filled with various new play styles of Pong made to simulate real-world sports. For example, put both of the paddles at the bottom of the screen on either side of a impassable object, give the world a kind of simulated gravity that limits the upward movement of the ball, and make the bottom of the screen the “score zone” and you’ve got badminton, tennis, or volleyball. Take away the impassable “net” and the score zone at the bottom of the screen, keep the gravity, and add targets on either side of the screen that the ball must pass through vertically from above in order to score and you’ve got basketball. Just about any sport that is based upon the movement of a ball between zones by opposing teams can simulated by making small modifications to the game engine of Pong. Video Olympics really milks Pong for all it’s worth, and the execution is consistently clever and engaging.

Pong can get boring after a few decades, but Video Olympics stretches out the fun factor quite a bit. Just imagine the kind of Olympic tournament you could set up with your friends. Assign each person a country, play every single variety of Pong included in the game, tally the amount of medals each country has earned and see which is the greatest sovereign state after all. This game should be a staple at all Mock United Nations conventions.

Forgive me if this seems like a bit of a stretch, but along with Combat for the 2600, Video Olympics can be counted among the greatest videogames ever created. It’s certainly in my top ten. Someday, when interactive entertainment is studied to the degree that the other arts are, this game will be used as a teaching tool for students of the discipline looking to understand what it means to create a sustaining, believable universe. At its heart lies the very kernel of videogaming.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/02, Updated 10/14/02