Centipede 1982 By: Atari

Overview:

Centipede is credited as the first game to be developed by a woman. It was also one of the first arcade games to have a rather large female fan base. This port to the 2600 is good. The graphics don't look that close to the original, but that's typical for the Atari. The sounds were good considering the lack of hardware power of the 2600. The important thing was the gameplay which stayed pretty true to form. It was still a lot of fun to play. The controls were decent but they were nothing compared to the ball controller on the arcade machine. Although, while playing on CC you can use your mouse for the controller which is a lot closer to the original ball controller.

Directions:

The player is represented by a small, "somewhat humanoid head" at the bottom of the screen. The player moves
the character about the bottom area of the screen with a trackball and fires laser shots at a Centipede advancing
from the top of the screen down through a field of mushrooms. Shooting any section of the Centipede creates a
mushroom; shooting one of the middle segments splits the Centipede into two pieces at that point. Each piece then
continues independently on its way down the board. The Centipede starts at the top of the screen, traveling either left or right. When it hits a mushroom or the
edge of the screen, it drops one level and switches direction. Thus, more mushrooms on the screen cause the
Centipede to descend more rapidly. The player can destroy mushrooms by shooting them, but each takes four hits to
destroy. If the Centipede reaches the bottom of the screen, it moves back and forth within the player area and one-segment "head" Centipedes are periodically added. This continues until the player has eliminated both the original Centipede and all heads. When all the Centipede's segments are destroyed, a new Centipede forms at the top of the screen. Every time a Centipede is eliminated, however, the next one is one segment shorter and is accompanied by one additional, fast-moving "head" Centipede. A player loses a life when hit by a Centipede or another enemy, such as a spider or a flea. The flea leaves mushrooms behind when fewer than five are in the player area, though the number required increases with level of difficulty. There are also scorpions, which poison every mushroom they touch, but these never appear in the player's movement region. A Centipede touching a poisoned mushroom hurtles straight toward the player's area. Upon reaching it, it returns to normal behavior.