Recent reviews by Adam MadMan

Let me preface this by saying that I love Centipede. I've been playing it for most of my life, and I've played it on a variety of platforms, both through emulations and ports. I've even played the original arcade game with the trackball (with a Millipede exterior, funnily enough). Needless to say, I know what I'm talking about when I say that Centipede: Recharged is a bit of a letdown.

Now the most obvious thing you'll notice is the visuals, which have been altered from the original's raster graphics to look like vector graphics along the lines of other Atari arcade classics like Asteroids and Tempest, and while it looks stylish, the overall design looks better on paper than in actual gameplay. The game has been altered to take up the whole screen, which probably looks neater for a modern gamer raised on 16:9 games, but it means that the creatures have a lot more distance to travel, which hurts the speed and energy that make the original game so fun. Furthermore, a big part of the strategy is keeping an eye on the surroundings, and a larger playing field just makes it more of a pain, which isn't helped by the unnecessary (though thankfully optional, and not even default) option to zoom the screen onto the player.

The redone sound also does more harm than good to the experience. In the original, Atari's proprietary POKEY sound chip, the same one used in their 8-bit computers and the infamous Atari 5200, is used to give the iconic sounds. Each of the enemies has a distinct sound, giving the player a cue to plan a strategy to deal with them. Recharged gives them more realistic sounds, which again, sound better in theory than in practice. The sounds are so subtle that I often barely notice when new enemies pop up. Making things worse is the generic, forgettable wavetable music, which often threaten to drown the sounds out.

One thing I didn't mention in the original version of this review was that the shooting feels a bit slower than the original. Maybe it's just because of the larger playing field, but the Bug Blaster seems to fire more slowly than in the original, making it somewhat harder to time your moves unless you have a power-up.

On that note, the addition of power-ups is a mixed bag. They can and do make the game a little more playable, but I consider them to be a bit of a gimmick; the original was fun without them. It's not like Arkanoid, where the power-ups added a genuinely enjoyable new layer to the gameplay. If anything, they wouldn't have been necessary if it weren't for the game's other flaws. It also doesn't help that the first time I shoot a spider in a given playthrough, the game momentarily freezes, though honestly that may just be down to my less-than-optimal computer setup.

Another issue I have that I didn't previously mention was the removal of levels in the main arcade mode. The changing levels helped make the original more fun, as you had a sense of progression. In Recharged, I don't get that; for as long as I've played, everything seems to be the same difficulty.

When I first wrote this review, the game was missing mouse control, which was a huge oversight in my opinion. Like I said at the beginning, the original arcade version used a trackball to control the Bug Blaster, and the resulting precise controls are a major part of what makes it so addicting. Admittedly, a lot of earlier ports had to port the game over without the ability to use a trackball, and the results, while usually still fun, do feel a bit more floaty than the original as a result, but in my experience, a mouse works just as well, if not better (then again, the vast majority of my experience with the game has been with a mouse, so I may be biased). Playing with a keyboard just doesn't cut it, and while an analog stick is more precise, it's just not the same. But the worst part is that playing with an Xbox or Xinput controller doesn't even work in my experience. I've gotten it to work perfectly literally once in my time playing, and every other time something goes wrong. When I turn on the game after turning off my computer, the game stops responding to the controller, even though it works with everything else. Unplugging and plugging it back in fixes the issue for the menus, but in the actual game, only the control stick works. The button that's supposed to fire does absolutely nothing, and I have to use the keyboard for firing. Of course, I did all of this before the addition of mouse support, so I imagine this has been fixed too, but honestly, I just don't have the motivation to test it out again, considering I can now play it using my preferred method.

Back when I first reviewed this game, I was a lot more upset with the game due to the controls, but now they've been fixed, my opinion has definitely improved. At least now the game actually feels a bit more like the original. Still, considering the dull audio, questionable changes, and the poor intial launch, I'd be lying if I said I fully recommend it, not for $10 at least. Maybe it's my nostalgia and purist nature, but if given the choice between the original arcade classic and Recharged, I'd take the original in a heartbeat.

I'm not familiar with the developer, Adamvision, but I've heard they've done great work elsewhere, and I do strongly commend them for their ability to address the more pressing complaints, especially regarding the controls. I'm certainly open to playing more of their product. It's just too bad that this game in particular didn't live up to my expectations. Still, at least now I can say it's playable, even if I do completely prefer the original, which is definitely a testament to the devs' dedication.