Centipede

"This is one bugfest you'll want to have crawling around!"

Centipede, a classic bugfest shooter where you shoot at a giant centipede that can regenerate itself if seperated at all, along with a pesky spider, ladybugs, and a scorpion, all in a giant patch of mushrooms. You man your gun and shoot that centipede and watch out for that spider in wave after wave of bug blasting fun! A simple game, right? Right! The way they ported it to the Atari 7800 was even better, seeing how they added sharp graphics, different difficulty levels, and even various two player modes!

Graphics: 10/10
The mushrooms look sharp, and each shot makes them disappear a little so you can tell how many hits they've taken simply by looking at them. The centipede is still drawn simply, but you can still see its eyes at the front of every head segment, and of course, the spider still crawls around the way it did in the arcade! It's almost like owning the arcade game in your Atari 7800!

Sounds: 10/10
All the classic sounds, like the centipede's crawling, the spider's creeping around, the falling ladybug, and, of course, the scorpion's 'dancing' across the screen, complete with that fanfare you get when you earn a bonus life, are still intact. The zapper sounds like the shots from Air Sea Battle on the Atari 2600, but that's nothing to complain about really, seeing how the rest of the game sounds excellent!

Controls: 10/10
There's no trackball for the 7800, but a joystick works just as well. You can move in 8 directions, and holding the fire button allows you to fire rapid fire at the attacking insects. Then again, what else would you want, a homing missile? Sorry, not this game!

Replay: 10/10
The game comes complete with four difficulty settings and saves your highest scores for each setting as long as you keep the game turned on, and you can play two-player alternating, or simultaneously. With head-to-head, both players have their own stock of lives, but as long as one still has extra lives, when the other player loses his or her last life, they'll come back into play. Teamplay has the players sharing lives and working together to earn the highest score combined by the two of their scores together. It just can't get any better than this!

Overall: 10/10
You don't have Centipede crawling around for your Atari 7800? What are you waiting for, go out and catch a copy of this game wherever you can! This is one centipede you won't mind having crawl around your 7800!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/02, Updated 10/17/02