Atari may have stagnated later in the 1980s in terms of innovation, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s they were defining video game genres. You could argue that Centipede was more or less in the same genre as Space Invaders but there is no doubt that it was the next evolutionary step towards scrolling vertical shooters that would come along slightly later.
Centipede is relatively peaceful compared to most of today’s popular games. At least you were only killing bugs and other pests. You, as the player, shoot at a centipede from the bottom of the screen as it meanders its way towards you from the top of the screen, weaving its way through a field of mushrooms. The centipede is divided into segments and each time you hit the centipede, one of the segments is destroyed and the centipede splits into two. You can have several centipede segments rushing your way after a short time. You can still dodge the centipede (or segments) when it gets to the bottom of the screen but if it hits you then you lose one of your lives. For variety, there are other creatures that come along occasionally as well including: a spider that hops along the bottom quarter of the screen shooting at you, a flea that dive bombs you from the top of the screen and a scorpion that dashes across the screen. A level is completed when all centipede segments are destroyed. Then a new level begins with another centipede only this time, moving faster…and so on.
Centipede was originally released as an arcade game and of course that is the best version. However, there were a multitude of ports and most of them were not bad, even if the graphics sometimes suffered. The Atari 2600 version was probably the most popular home port given that the Atari 2600 was the most popular video game system at the time and this was an Atari game. The graphics were obviously inferior to the arcade version but the game play was very much the same. As far as ports to the Atari 2600 go, this was probably about as good as you could expect.
In addition to the Atari 2600 version, there were versions released for Atari 8-bit computers and the Atari 5200, Apple II, Atari 7800, IBM PC (DOS), Intellivision, TI-99/4A, VIC-20, Game Boy and probably others. The arcade version has been re-released as part of a multitude of various collections for various systems. The Atari 2600 version has seen fewer re-releases but it has shown up in the Atari Anthology for Xbox and PlayStation 2 (2004), Atari Vault (2016) and Evercade (2020). The original arcade version used a trackball as the controller so ideally you should use a trackball with the platform of your choice. Of course that isn’t always practical and often not even possible these days.
If you are looking to play Centipede for the very first time, then that makes me feel a little sad…and old, but definitely go with the arcade version. If you do have an Atari 2600 though, then Centipede should definitely be in your collection if it isn’t already. It is very common and physical carts can be had very cheaply. You can always check out the Atari 2600 version (and pretty much any other version) on an emulator as well. But anybody who considers themselves an avid video game player needs to have at least tried Centipede once. By today’s standards it might seem simplistic and repetitive…but the goal with these games was to get that ever higher high-score.
Screen shots above are from the Atari 2600 version of the game.
