- You're trapped in the perilous Enchanted Forest. Dark, dangerous mushrooms push up through the squishy forest floor, surrounding you on every side. Threatening thumps and evil buzzing fill the air. Something slimy flashes through the mushrooms, closing in on you. Suddenly, glaring eyes and quivering antenna jump right out at you! Sparks fire from your magic wand again and again destroying the Centipede before its diminishing body can grow new heads. But more perils lurk in the forest - fierce.
Product description
-------------------
Includes game, original case, and original manual. Also
includes bonus collector DVD case with reprint of original
artwork to look pretty on shelf next to current games! These
items are in good condition and complete but they are not like
new. They may have small flaws to the case and the game may have
very small scratches that do not affect game play. All
ClassicGameStore games are tested before being taken into our
inventory.
Review
------
It's getting more and more difficult these days to think
of a classic game that hasn't been revamped and rereleased on a
current-day console, and Centipede is no exception. It first made
its way to the PlayStation in May, and now the new 'pede-shooting
adventure can be found on the Dreamcast. But while it's slightly
better than its PlayStation brother, Centipede is still only
average, at best. This time around, the game has a plotline.
You're Wally, a simple bean counter who's somehow chosen to pilot
the Wee People's last hope, The Shooter, against the QueenPede
and her countless brood. You'll fly about in five different
worlds, shooting bugs, creating mushrooms, defending villages,
and rescuing your fellow Wee People from the clutches of the vile
centipedes. You've got better tricks at your disposal than you
had in the original game, as you'll be able to upgrade your main
cannon, fire secondary weapons, and use shields. However, the
game is pretty much the same. You turn countless centipedes into
mushrooms, blast spiders, and avoid touching anything dangerous.
Now that you're in a somewhat 3D environment you get a better
control scheme. You can now use the shoulder buttons to strafe,
making it easy to fly circles around your enemies. And instead of
being limited to the bottom third of the screen, you can now roam
wherever you like - up hills, across chasms, and through the
villages of the Wee People. And now you can jump, which makes it
easy to hop over troublesome mushrooms and climb ledges for
special power-ups. While much nicer than those in the PlayStation
version, the graphics in this game don't really challenge the
hardware of the Dreamcast. Everything looks fairly nice, but more
advanced features, such as detailed lighting and shading effects,
are absent. The game supports three views, which drastically
change the appearance of the game. From the top-down view, you
can see most of the level, and everything looks rather plain.
When you switch to the first-person mode you'll notice nice
details, like the eyes of the spiders and the menacing teeth of
the centipedes. You'll also see that houses have doors, windows,
and other nice details, and the Wees start to look like people.
Once in the first-person view, you'll start to get a feel for the
tiny world in which the Wee People live - from the lighthouses
perched on pebbles to the windmills hidden beneath tall blades of
grass. Unfortunately, once you've seen one Wee village, you've
seen 'em all. Sound effects are present in the game, but they
give you the sensation that there's still something missing. A
generic techno beat fills the background music, and remade
versions of the classic sound effects tell you when you hit
something, but at times it seems as though the appropriate sound
effect is missing. Also, while the soundtrack and sound effects
are clear, the audio that runs during the cutscenes has a lot of
hiss to it, and, and it sounds rather low-quality. If you've got
a friend who's up for saving a few Wee People, you can play
cooperatively. This mode is actually pretty cool, though with the
exception of the split screen, there's no difference between this
mode and the one-player mode. The frame rate stays at a smooth
level, and the pop-up remains just as unnoticed. Like most
classic games being remade, Centipede also features a fairly
accurate port of the original game. But unlike in the PlayStation
version, the original game actually does well on the Dreamcast,
with a perfect frame rate and accurate graphics and sound. Fans
of the original will be pleased will the excellent translation.
Unfortunately, as with virtually all the classic games reborn on
a current-day console, playing the new version of Centipede is
really nothing like playing the original. What's really
disappointing is that instead of shooting centipedes over and
over, you could have instead been exploring a great 3D world and
blasting away tons of cool enemies. But instead, Centipede tries
too hard to latch on to the classic gaming experience, and it
pulls what could have been a great 3D shooter into the hollows of
the average. --Ben Stahl--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All
rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or
medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review