A wandering through some of Leipzig's more less-traveled halls revealed an entire art show devoted to Pong. There were dozens of variations of Pong on display, from the original game to psychadelic clones to Rockstar's Table Tennis. But I found myself spending a lot of time oggling the crazy Pong-playing gizmos that had been hacked together.

Such as this version, Pong played with what appeared to be a magnetized table:

The only problem was that the ball didn't always or even most of the time seem to bounce off of the paddle, instead appearing to swoop under it. This caused the player on the right to sigh in frustration.

"Does it suck?" I asked.

"It's Pong." he responded, as if that said everything.

But Velocipede Pong was a lot cooler:

Pedal in one direction and the paddle went up; the opposite would lower it. These guys were having a blast, sweat spraying off of them in every direction as they furiously pedaled back and forth, trying to block each others' shots.

Finally, Shadow Pong, in which a moving player controls the paddle by sidling back and forth.

"How is it?" I asked one player as he wooted in jubilation at a goal on his opponent.

"Dude! It's Pong!" he exulted.