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Bounce 2
The game is afoot
Something seems off here. Picture yourself in my shoes for a moment (apologies, I'm sorry, it won't last long). I'm browsing through Steam, hunting for something a bit out of the ordinary, when you spot a colorful, CRT-interlacing-ridden Atari-style game called Bounce 2. I click on it, and find out it's a follow-up to a 1983 Atari 2600 title named Bounce, which was intended to be a PONG killer but launched during the infamous video game crash. Except I suspect none of this is accurate! Well, aside from the fact that Bounce 2 exists.
When you come across a game that's a sequel to one released over four decades ago that you've never heard of, the natural step is to turn to your preferred search engine. That's exactly what I did, stumbling upon an entry on the BBC Micro Games Archive for a game that genuinely did come out in 1983 called Bounce, which is apparently lost—not to mention that the BBC Micro is a completely different console I'd never even heard of, made by yes, that BBC, the British one.
This leads me to think it's just a clever marketing ploy! A bamboozle! A hoodwink, a swindle, a con. It worked on me, though, as I now know about Bounce 2, which I'll finally actually describe. Bounce 2 is certainly a spin-off of PONG, with some notable twists. For one, you don't control a single line resembling a ping pong paddle, but a rough figure of a human that can jump, kick, and dash.
The aim is to score goals against your opponents, who are your friends, with up to four of you able to play together. Simple enough! Made tricky by the fact that you can swing your arms to hit the ball even harder, or to attack your opponent. Everyone has their own health, and reducing it to zero turns you into just a head, keeping you in the game and able to keep defending your goal, just with a lot fewer limbs at your disposal.
It's a very neat-looking little game that even lets you scale the image to your liking on your very own CRT, or adjust the game's phase and chroma settings that you'd normally find on old TVs like that. It really appeals to my CRT-loving heart.
Bounce 2 is available to purchase on Steam now.