Video games have come a long way in a relatively short period of time. Today, modern video games are cinematic, with graphics and gameplay that would have seemed space age to earlier generations of gamers. They owe a lot to their roots, with early arcade games helping popularise the genre, and paving the way for the multi-billion dollar gaming industry as we know it today. One of those all time retro classics that helped kickstart the genre is Atari’s Pong, a game that most gamers will instantly recall in format and design.
A table-tennis style game with the most primitive graphics imaginable, today Pong holds appeal for a generation of players who grew up with these kinds of games, and early games consoles. Thanks to the team at Pariplay who also created games such as Fish and Chips, Atari’s Pong has now been made into a slots game, and with compelling results.
Slot games need a theme, and with Atari Pong, that’s instantly covered. The reels are set across a background that looks like a pong game in progress, while you’ll find the value symbols on the reels align closely with the types of symbols and images you’ll remember from gaming days gone by. This all factors in to create a slot with plenty of novelty appeal, as well as the chance to play for real money prizes.
Behind the impressive design, which is stunning in its graphics and in its impact, this is a fairly standard slots structure, with 5 reels of 3 vertical symbols running from left to right. As you spin through your session, you’re looking to line up combination of matching symbols, which are paid when they land in combinations of three or more on any of the available 20 paylines.
The RTP stands at 94.66%, which is a decent payout, if not the most generous slot we’ve ever seen. That’s more than made up for by the bonus symbols and features, including a permanent wild in the centre of reel 3 – effectively right in the middle of the board. The spins round to determine a type of wild bonus for each spin, which is great for increasing your chances of landing a combination bonus.
Packed with added extra features to make your game go more smoothly (and with a bit of luck, with bigger winnings along the way), this is a game that stays true to the original, while building in potential for bigger combination wins.
As with all our slot game reviews, lets start with the featured symbols. Atari Pong is an unusual slot, in that there is a single feature symbol responsible for triggering the game bonuses. This symbol is the wild, which occupies the very central position on the board, and will spin independently of the other reels to reveal a type of wild or bonus wild to be applied to the online casino game.
There are no other bonus symbols to speak of, and while the wild generally works in the usual way by substituting for missing symbols in completing combinations, it is also responsible for delivering some of the best bonus features the game has to offer.
The central wild spins between different bonus wild symbols, which can deliver a range of different features for your game. There’s the standard wild feature, of course, where this is just treated like any other wild symbol, in any other slots game. Then there are various other types of wilds, which can deliver enhanced features like multipliers and free spins.
Referee wilds trigger these features, which can include vertical expansion wilds, where the entire central reel becomes wild, for even more chances to win. It’s also possible to expand horizontally, or to land multipliers and a free game, depending on the type of wild spun in the middle.
You can also even trigger a game of Pong by landing on the Wild Block – this sees the pong ball ping across the reels, leaving up to 6 new wilds on the board as it goes, the perfect feature for virtually guaranteed spin wins.
This is a game that Pong fans will naturally love, and the retro gaming experience is done well by the Pariplay team, who have created a simply stunning slots game in the process. But even if Pong wasn’t your thing, you’ll probably enjoy this game, especially given its novelty bonus features that keeps the action feeling fresh.
Take Atari Pong for a spin today, and see why it’s proving popular with slots fans everywhere – you’ll find it right here, at PartyCasino.