One of the most commercially successful games from the Golden Age of arcade machines, Atari’s Centipede was released in 1980 and remains a true classic to this day. This award winning arcade game has been ported to a wide variety of platforms including the IPhone and the Xbox 360. But nothing beats playing on the original system. Here at Williams Amusements, we are arcade game experts. And we have produced this buyers guide to Centipede.

The Game-play

Centipede is a fixed shooter arcade game that is also vertically orientated. And the aim of the game is to completely destroy the centipede, and score the highest amount of points. The centipede will drop a level for every mushroom it eats, until it is on the same level as the player. You lose a life every time the centipede touches you, so you really need to shoot the mushrooms, before the centipede can eat them. Each mushroom takes four shots to destroy.

However, if you shoot the centipede directly, that segment will turn into a mushroom! Fueling the centipedes decent to the bottom!

Also if you shoot the centipede in the middle, then it will split into two separate centipedes, each making their own decent to the bottom, causing twice the chaos!

Other enemies

In this shooting game, the centipede isn’t the only enemy you need to watch out for. There are:

  • fleas that will descend vertically and leave mushrooms behind
  • spiders that will walk across the bottom of the screen, occasionally eating some mushrooms, but also causing you to lose a life if you touch one
  • scorpions that poison the mushrooms. If the centipede eats a poisoned mushroom, the centipede will fall directly to the player area, and you will risk your in game lives.

This challenging and fun arcade machine has truly stood the test of time. And it is a real test of skill for anyone wanting to recapture the nostalgia of true gaming, or those wishing to experience it for the first time. Why not take a look today, here at Williams Amusements.