Today, if you're not sure whether sticking with a video game is worth it, you can easily go on YouTube and let an 11-year-old from Bali show you all of the game's secrets. It wasn't that long ago, though, that you were forced to experience that magic and discovery all by yourself ... and it fucking sucked . Why? Because for every game that rewarded your hundreds of hours of hard work with something cool and satisfying, there were many others that pulled shenanigans like ...

6 Mortal Kombat II: Play 250 Fights, Unlock A Single Game Of Pong

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

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Mortal Kombat II was the first fighting game to have elaborate Easter eggs. Quickly press start while the "Toasty!" guy invades your screen, and you can face a secret fighter called "Smoke." Win 50 fights in a row, and you get to battle another one called "Noob Saibot." On its own, the fact that the developers came up with all these wildly different characters is impressive enough.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Not pictured: Skidmark, the brown ninja.

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But what happens if you play not 50 but, say, 250 fights? Playground rumors abounded: You unlock another character called Hornbuckle, or Goro's dad, or you get to touch a boob in real life. Whatever it was, it was clearly worth a shot, so many a '90s teen stayed up all night trying to discover the truth ...

The "Reward":

If you play 250 fights in a row (you don't have to win them), you'll see a special message about fighting a challenge from your past. And then you start playing Pong.

Oh, you think we're kidding.

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Yes, you can play the beloved 1972 ping pong simulator and friendship ruiner in Mortal Kombat II, for some reason. Disappointingly, the loser's paddle doesn't explode in a sea of blood, nor is the ball the disembodied head of one of the characters. It's just a regular game of Pong -- and we do mean "a" regular one, singular, because once someone scores seven points and wins, it's back to the fighting again. Feel like a rematch? Hope you have time for 250 more fights. Also, fun fact: Mortal Kombat II is two years older now than Pong was back then.