When comparing Pong vs Super Mario 64, the Slant community recommends Pong for most people. In the question“What are the best and the most revolutionary games of all time?” Pong is ranked 3rd while Super Mario 64 is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Pong is:
Pong may not have been the first video game ever, but it was definitely the first commercially successful and widely popular.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro First commercially successful and widely popular video game
Pong may not have been the first video game ever, but it was definitely the first commercially successful and widely popular.
Pro Established video games as commercially viable
Pong inspired a generation of video game enthusiasts and established video games as a popular and commercially viable industry.
Pro Modeled after real-life Ping-Pong with adjustments
The concept for Pong was modeled on real life Ping-Pong, with a few modifications to make the gameplay more exciting. For example, the player could change the ball's return angle based on what section of the paddle the ball hit.
This made the game both more fun and challenging to play. The speed of the game also increased over time to ensure that the gameplay remained challenging for people at higher skill levels.
Pro Free-roaming, open-world game
Super Mario 64, as a free-roaming, open-world game, was a precursor to later groundbreaking games such as Grand Theft Auto, and has been cited by Peter Molyneux as one of the 5 most groundbreaking games of the last 20 years for this reason
Pro Developed a proper camera and control scheme for 3D games
3D games prior to Mario 64 were somewhat all over the place with their control schemes, and game developers were still struggling to use the third dimension they now had access to. SM64 is a freeform game that makes the most of its 3rd dimension with fantastic control and camera orientation that we take for granted these days, but was highly innovative in its own time.