Classic videogames are amazing. They are the foundation presented by the industry pioneers to our ancestors, upon which millions of people started to build their own passion for gaming, bringing us slowly but surely to where we are now. However, playing these games today can sometimes be a miserable experience, where one just can’t feel those gamer vibes, and boredom quickly arises, despite knowing full well how important to the world those old videogames really are.
I think even the most casual young gamer knows about Pong. Being it the first actually succesful videogame, and the most classic arcade one, it would be hard to find someone who can’t even imagine it. However, probably not many people have ever played the original in modern years, and while I don’t blame them, I think that’s kind of a shame… but alas, classic Pong is always the same, and there’s nothing that would make even me come back to it.
This was, for me, up until my discovery of Pistol Pong DS. This homebrew game is very simple in concept, being almost a clone of the classic Pong, without any fancy visuals or improvements, except for one really unexpected gameplay mechanic: the NRA managed to convince us that we really do need something more in this game to defend ourselves from our adversaries; we need guns.
Indeed, the entire gimmick of this reproposition is that we (and the other player, be it the computer or another user) have a pistol at our disposal, which can be used to try and take out our competitor, while at the same time trying to not let them score (or kill) us. You obviously move your paddle with the up and down keys on the d-pad… and, not quite as obviously (in fact, it took me several seconds to figure out), shoot with the right d-pad key. Okay I guess, that’s better than using the shoulder button, I can at least play this on my GBA Macro where the L button is broken.
The gameplay is quite barebones, but I don’t think that’s bad – you can see a short GIF below. It’s fun for a few minutes, but I would say the sound effects can sometimes get on my nerves, some are probably too loud. Sadly, there’s no music, we’re going full old-school here.
I couldn’t try it, as I’m quite a lonely loli, but I bet the 2-player mode could be fun. As the first player keeps their control scheme, the opponent will use X and B to move up and down, and Y to shoot, and I’m sure that trying to shoot your friend while distracting them with a white ball could only ever do good for your friendship.
A quite fun fact (but which got me a bit scared…) is that… well, I was having a simple game, and all of a sudden – I think because I did the very rare move where my bullet hit the enemy at the same time as the ball did, or at the same time as the ball went outside the field – the game’s audio glitched, and there started the destruction of my ears due to the sound of that moment being played forever.
The game continued playing just fine though, except for the audio. Take a look at the video I shot (unfortunately, it doesn’t catch the moment the glitch got triggered):
For the end of this review, here you can go and visit the official Git repository for the game (which is libre software under the GPL-3.0), where you can find the code and assets as well as the compiled .NDS ROM, for trying on your own terms: https://github.com/Jonatan6/Pistol-Pong-DS. Or, maybe, you can try the game via the embedded web emulator below for a quick evaluation, too! Give it a shot (get it?), really.