I need to commend Atari for comissioning not one, but two games based on Pong, in which they have actually found a way to make the most jurassic and basic of all gaming premises feel innovative again. PONG Quest wasn’t amazing, but it was creative. No one thought that giving Pong paddles a personality, and making a story around them, would ever see the light of day, but here we are. Qomp2, a sequel to a game I had admittedly never heard of prior to reviewing it, takes this deconstruction even further, with a simple premise: what if the Pong ball, and not the paddle, was sentient? What if there was a game detailing its journey through a series of mazes and gauntlets?

Hit a wall, and you’ll bounce towards the opposite direction, just like in Pong.

Yeah, well, that had never been in the back of my mind before, but the folks at Graphite Lab were able to come up with something that ludicrous, which would still work, despite a fair share of flaws. It’s an odd amalgamation of an abstract puzzler, a love letter to retro gaming (it’s modern Atari, it’s basically their entire existence at this point), and Super Meat Boy, even though this is not a 2D platformer. Let me explain.

You don’t actually have full control of the Pong ball. It will constantly move forward, only changing directions when it hits a surface, or when you press the A button. Upon doing so, the ball with move to the opposite direction of the angle of the last surface you’ve hit. The challenge lies on trying to guide the ball to the end of the level whilst avoiding all kinds of obstacles and collecting every single necessary key. Touch an obstacle, and your ball explodes (heh). Back to the last checkpoint.

What if I told you this section is actually not that difficult? At least compared to later levels, that is.

The Meat Boy comparisons lie on how brutally difficult Qomp2 is. You will die constantly, and that’s by design. The physics and gimmicky and tricky, but you can get used to them after a while. The problem is that, by then, the game will have already unveiled like seven new kinds of mechanisms and additional obstacles for you to pay attention to. Thankfully, there are tons of checkpoints per level; you can basically activate a new one whenever you manage to get past a section inside of it, even though that sounds a lot easier than it actually is. If you’re a real damn pro, Qomp2 will be a short experience. I am not (I got a trophy for dying 100 times already in the 8th level), so the game ended up feeling a lot longer than it actually was.

That also means that Qomp2 ain’t a game for everyone. It lives and dies by its gameplay. It’s intentionally minimalist in its presentation, with greyscale graphics and an ambient, quasi-drone-ish soundtrack. You’re here for tough gauntlets. You will want to break the controller in half after dying six times in a row in identical ways. You will also breathe a sigh of relief and feel like the god of gaming after solving a previously seemingly impossible section. And probably never bother to play it again.

Qomp2 managed to cram in some actually fun boss battles against some evil Pong paddles. Some freaking how.

Qomp2 is a fun challenge while it lasts. It’s a game all about a tough, borderline unfair, but ultimately rewarding gameplay loop. You will shout at it, you will want to break your controller in half, but you won’t want to give up that easily. I don’t exactly feel like the game captivated me enough to want to replay its levels and collect its (very few) secret items, nor do I feel like it’s worthy of a second playthrough for the sake of it, but it’s not a bad time while it lasts.

Qomp2 is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Xbox Series S.

A copy of Qomp2 was provided by the publisher.