Atari and retro gaming are synonymous, so it is about time an Atari property made its way to Xbox Live Arcade. Atari's first offering to the Xbox 360 faithful is 1980 classic Centipede and its 1982 sequel Millipede coming packaged together for the paltry sum of 400 Microsoft Points.
Centipede and Millipede are essentially the same game, with the latter providing a few slight upgrades from the original. The basic premise, for the uninitiated, is that you are at the bottom of the screen shooting arrows at an elongated insect weaving itself downwards toward your character. Shoot a part of the bug, and the piece turns to a mushroom, but the remainder of the bug continues downward. Making the insect killing all the more difficult are the spiders that dance from one side of the screen to the next, in an effort to kill you. The round ends when the player has cleared all pieces of the centipede or millipede from the garden, starting the next round and another large bug following quickly. Millipede adds a little fuel to the fire with the increased number of annoying insects to contend with (other than the downward crawling millipede) and various DDT blocks to shoot, eradicating anything within range.
Rather than just porting over the original versions, the games each offer classic and evolved as play modes, with normal or 'throttle monkey' as difficulties. The combination of the different modes and difficulties goes a long way to extend the game's replay value. The classic versions remain just as you remember them, both graphically and sonically. The gameplay remains the same, but with some decent graphical tweaks for evolved versions of each game.
The more brightly colored evolved versions of each game never quite look next-gen, but are enough of an upgrade from the moldy original graphics to take note. More satisfying are the effects when you nail an insect, as the game now creates a wicked splatter effect, as though the insect hit your windshield at 80 miles per hour. The developers may have gotten a little too overzealous with the amount of florescent yellow insect juice that nearly takes over the screen with each hit, but it is a clever effect nonetheless. The only negative issue with the evolved version is the larger scale of everything on the screen. It does make the fact that you are an archer clearer and shows more detail on the bugs you are trying to kill, but it severely limits the amount of space gamers have to work with. As a result, you may find yourself retreating to classic mode in search of high scores.
