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Ping Pong was released by the Ocean-owned incarnation of Imagine in 1986 as part of the series of Konami coin-op conversions.

Click on the links to the left to read the reviews. I used to think these were a lot more to do with Ocean/Imagine's advertising budget than the quality of the game, but it's amazing how many people still remember this one. I think it probably captured the simplicity of a fun game.

The major technical achievement is that the entire game loop runs in a fraction of a TV frame so it probably takes about 1/200th of a second (not that you'd notice). I can't imagine that that could be anything to do with only having four things moving on the screen at a time! Who cares - it's funny how playable I still find this one and I find it unimaginable that people play it on Level 5 (but I was always a rubbish games player).

The most common memory people have of this game is the extremely high quality of the in-game music, which you won't be able to experience while the Applet is running. I have to say that it was entirely down to other people - Joffa Smifff's ace music routine and Martin Galway's cool tunes.Oh, and that 'Bernie Dugggs' thing was Joffa's idea as well - Dougie Burns becomes Bernie Dugggs. I have no idea how I let him talk me into that one ...

To start playing, just click in the window and then press enter. Select the number of players and then use option 5 from the opening menu to define your own keys and 1 to select keyboard and 0 to begin play ... The first thing that you have to do is pick a level to start at, from 1 to 5. I'd recommend you start at 5, particularly on a ridiculous modern CPU, which already needs to be slowed down. You press Serve (Down) to throw the ball up and then Drive or Cut (the Left or Right keys) to take a swing at it. The fire key switches your bat to backhand. Other than that, I'll leave it to you ...