The Terminator 2 to the original Pong
Sequels are a tricky thing. On one hand you do want more of the same thing but you also want them to break from the norm. In Terminator 1, the T800 is a horrifying unstoppable monster stalking the main character whereas in T2 the character has been flipped to be significantly less threatening but the soul of the previous film is still there. I guess what I’m saying is Graphite Lab’s qomp2 is the T2 to the original Pong.
Billed as a sequel to Pong (there’s more to this but let’s just keep it Kayfabe) we now take on the role of the ball instead of the paddle. We break free of our black and white CRT prison and go on a journey through our own personal hell. We are released to bounce and smash our way through 30 levels of hazards, tricks, and even boss fights.
The magic of qomp2 is that it only has two buttons. One controls our Y Axis movement; we’re always in motion and can only change X Axis movement when we bounce off a surface. The other button is a little dash that also lets us interact with blue tinted objects. The game itself is not a particularly chill experience, but the control method makes it an absolutely perfect one to sit back and just get completely lost in. I myself highly recommend playing with a mouse, it just feels comfy that way. I don’t really want to spoil anything either but the game makes sure that we’re never completely comfortable with what it’s doing and will flip the script on us once in a while so that we don’t find ourselves in a pattern recognition daze.
qomp2 is a thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to finish, and one that will leave our eyes bleeding just a little bit from staring at the screen so much.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for February 20, 2024. All images and video courtesy Atari & Graphite Lab.
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