Ultimate Pong Intellivision Review
This review is covering Ultimate Pong for the Intellivision, but before I jump into that I am going to go into a little bit of the history regarding pong. Paraphrasing from Wikipedia:
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games and the first sports arcade video game. Manufactured by Atari, it was originally released in 1972.
Pong is a two-dimensional sports game that simulates table tennis featuring simple graphics. The player controls an in-game paddle by moving it vertically, and you can compete against either a computer-controlled opponent or another player controlling a second paddle on the opposing side. Players use the paddles to hit a ball back and forth.
Several publications consider Pong the launch of the video game industry as a lucrative enterprise.
Even the video game giant Nintendo entered the video game market with clones of Home Pong.
Enter the Intellivision Console. Released in 1979, the original Intellivision has a catalog of 125 video games, not one of which features the video game, Pong. This was most likely due to the fact that at the time, the Intellivision was in direct competition with Atari. According to the Intellivision Wikipedia page, in 1981, Mattel, the parent company of Intellivision, had planned on releasing a version of Pong (called Hockey) as a part of the Triple Action cartridge but was not released due to legal concerns.
Fast-forwarding to 2016 at the Portland Retro-Gaming Expo, Ultimate Pong made it’s debut and would go on sale to the public at the tail end of October 2016.
Ultimate Pong is an action game containing 15 variations of the video game Pong. It was designed and written from scratch. You can play with either one player against the computer, two players, or 4 players, which would require an ECS expansion module. In the most basic game variations, each player has a single paddle and there are no obstacles on the screen. Other game variations add paddles and obstacles, and some are inspired by various sports and change the playfield around. Let’s discuss these variations. Reading from the manual:
PONG
It’s the classic arcade ping Pong game that you remember! Move your paddle to keep the ball from getting past you.
PONG 4
Attach your Intellivision Entertainment Computer System to the master component and four players can compete at once! Try small paddles for a real challenge!
BASKETBALL
Shoot the ball into your opponent’s basket to score. Make a fast break! You have to play both offense and defense to win this game. This is one of the only variations where the ball can bounce off of all four walls. And by the way, I noticed in basketball when you score you are only awarded one point.
BARRIER TENNIS
It’s tennis with a twist! Each court has barriers that give players two stationary barriers on the court to block (or make) shots. Move your paddle horizontally or vertically. Think fast!
BATTLE PONG
Get the ball past your opponent’s wall of bricks to score a point. Shoot your laser to eliminate his bricks and break through his defenses, but remember to keep the ball from hitting your wall!
Adding to this, in order to shoot your laser, you can either press “5” on the keypad or press the bottom button on either side of the controller.
When the enemy laser strikes the paddle, the paddle is frozen momentarily. Now I don’t know for sure if this is a bug, but before the ball is served, you can fire your laser endlessly and destroy all the barriers before play even starts. It works this way on all versions I tested. By the way firing the laser makes a sound similar to that of a cricket.
BRICK PONG
Get the ball past your opponent’s wall of bricks to score a point. Each time the ball strikes the wall, a brick disappears. Punch a hole in that wall!
CATCH
In Catch, you still try to get the ball past your opponent, but your large paddle has a gaping hole in the middle, which works as both an advantage and disadvantage. Deceptively tricky!
GRIDBALL
Slide your paddles up and down to create an opening and maneuver the ball through the gates and into your opponent’s goal for a score. Are you sharp enough to watch all three gates at once?
HOCKEY
Try for a fast break down the ice to put the puck in the net. But don’t forget to move your goalie into position when you’re on defense!
REBOUND
Keep the ball from getting past you as it rebounds off the top and both sides of the court. You‘ll have to play all the angles to make a save and keep the ball in play to have a chance to win! Now I believe in this game type, I don’t know if it was a bug but I thought I would score on his side and it would give him the point. I thought that was weird.
SOCCER
Move your paddle anywhere up and down the field to get an advantage and put the ball in the goal. But don’t leave your own goal open too long or your opponent will move in for the score.
This variation has a bug where the computer grabs the ball then gets stuck on either the top right or bottom right side of the playfield. However, sometimes you can move your paddle over there to help unstick it, to continue play.
SQUASH
Players alternate hitting the ball, trying to make their opponent miss. The ball changes color to indicate whose turn it is to hit.
TARGET
Move your crosshair to target the ball as it moves across the screen. Then use the bottom side buttons or keypad to shoot and score. Is your eye-hand coordination up to the task?
To me target is not really a Pong style of game, because you are controlling crosshairs rather than paddles.
In this game variation, once the computer chases the target off to the right side, it seems to get stuck there only moving vertically. I consider this a bug since when this happens it is way too easy to defeat the computer on any difficulty setting, rendering this option unplayable.
Note: version 9 of the ROM seems to have fixed this issue when I tried it using my LTO flash cartridge. This variation suddenly comes to life and is quite run and challenging to play. The download link will be in the videos description.
Note: Version 10 of the ROM which I got a copy of from Atariage user Rev seems to have broken the Target variation again during my testing.
TENNIS
Besides moving up and down the baseline, in this game, you can charge the net to speed things up and try to catch your opponent off guard, just like in real tennis!
VOLLEYBALL
Use as many hits as you need to get the ball over the net and keep it in play. If the ball isn’t returned, a point is scored
Volleyball has a bug that can occasionally crop up where the CPU will just bounce the ball endlessly up and down and not move the ball anywhere. I had this happen in C1 difficulty setting with my cartridge version on Intellivision.
Note: versions 9,10 of the ROM seems to have fixed this issue when I tried it using my LTO flash cartridge. The paddles now vibrate a little bit and this seems to keep the ball moving.
Also, I thought in volleyball you should only be allowed to hit the ball three times before losing your turn. Not so, in Pong volleyball!
When you start up Ultimate Pong, the first screen you are presented with is a quick menu with two choices.
1) Press one to start the game
2) Press two for Options
There is a catchy song that plays in the background right away as soon as you power on your console which can be toggled off and on by pressing “clear” on the keypad, bottom left button.
Pressing two on the keypad brings you to the options screen where several game customizations can be made pertaining to the colors, paddles and scoring. In order to change an option you simply press the number key on the keypad pertaining to that option and keep pressing the same number until you are satisfied with your selection.
Option 1 – Allows you to select between all 15 game modes.
Option 2 – Select your opponent and the computer difficulty. C1 is “Easy”, C2 is “Medium” and C3 is “Hard”
Option 3 – Select the playfield color
Option 4 – Select the Wall color
Option 5 – Change Paddle 1 color
Option 6 – Change Paddle 2 color
Option 7 – Change the ball color
Option 8 – Set the paddle size, either large or small.
Option 9 – Choose the number of points required to win a game. The options available are: 5,10,12,15,21,30,35,40,50,75,90,99
Option 0 – Exits the options menu
Note: When selecting your colors, be sure not to select any color combination in which the paddles are the same color as the play field or background color.
Exiting back to the main menu and pressing one will start the game. You will notice a different song will start playing at that time. I enjoy both songs, but they can be repetitive and again, they can be disabled by pressing “clear” on the keypad. In order to start the game player, one must press the top left or top right button to “serve”, or “launch” the ball into play.
Any game may be paused or resumed by simultaneously pressing 1 and 9 on the keypad. When the game is in pause mode, pressing “Enter”, bottom right on the keypad will abort the current game returning you back to the main menu.
On the surface, it looks like Ultimate Pong was inspired heavily by Atari’s Video Olympics, with a few more variations thrown in. In fact, I asked one of the games designers, Atariage user Rev, about that very question and this was his response:
“It was not specifically inspired by atari video Olympics. although I did look at it for ideas. in searching for modes to include, a lot of research was done across pretty much every version of Pong that was ever done. from all the stand-alone consoles and homeports and even online games. and even a couple of new versions included.”
And then he added:
“as to why Pong on Intellivision?”
“Pong was my first video game ever played, then growing up our second console was Intellivision. and since Pong was never on Intellivision, why not bring it over? And why just have a single-mode? A variety of modes to choose from makes for a much better game. ”
There were a couple of notable spelling errors that made it through quality assurance. I find it somewhat amusing that “Ultimate” is misspelled on the bottom flap of the box. On the PDF version of the manual, there are a couple of minor spelling issues in the paragraph covering Barrier Tennis. Also, Rev, pointed out to me that in the printed version of the manual, the last person listed has his name misspelled. Really not a big deal, I understand sometimes, even when multiple people proofread everything, some things slip through the cracks and as Rev mentioned, it adds a human element to the project.
I find Ultimate Pong to be really fun especially when playing with one or more human opponents.
The graphics are exactly what you would expect from a Pong game with a few improvements thrown in with regard to the color customizations. The ability to choose the various color options is a really nice feature. There are a total of 5 separate such options. The sound effects in Ultimate Pong are also mostly what you would expect. There are a few extra sounds that were thrown in, such as one for firing your laser in the Battle Pong variation or capturing the TARGET in the Target Variation. I like the nice image that was thrown in at the end of each game with the text, “How about another round?”. There are a total of six variations that allow you to move your paddle not only vertically, but also horizontally. They are Soccer, Target, Tennis, Basketball, Barrier Tennis, Battle Pong, and Hockey. There aren’t many Pong games out there that let you do that. It really adds to the fun.
You can currently purchase a complete in-box copy of Ultimate Pong on the Intellivision Revolution website store. It comes beautifully packaged and includes the cartridge, manual, and two controller overlays. In addition, as a bonus, they even throw in a nice color pamphlet covering the history of Pong, a really nice touch. It can be had for $60 plus shipping. If that sounds too pricey, you can download the ROM over at the Intellivision Revolution website for free and play it on your emulator of choice or on a flash cartridge such as the LTO flash!
Go check out Intellivision Ultimate Pong and support the homebrew community whenever you can. This is a fun game to play and I highly recommend it.
Youtube Description:
My first Intellivision game review! Jammed pack with loads of information, this is my review of Intellivision Ultimate Pong!
Links:
http://intellivisionrevolution.com/ultimatepong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intellivision_games
LTO Flash! Intellivision Multicart
http://ltoflash.leftturnonly.info/
Youtube Original Post Date: 06/02/2017
