Classic Arcade Games – Remixed!

BY: Dennis Nishi

The Internet has made it easy to be nostalgic and videogame companies are
capitalizing on this sentimental wave by recycling their back catalog of arcade
games and updating them for the latest generation of consoles and gamers. It’s a
good bet since 80s classics like Asteroids are easy to program, extremely
playable and more attractive to the casual gamer, which is a large segment that
game companies want to draw into the regular game-buying fold. Speakeasy got to
play a few of beloved remixes at E3 this year.

Atari Centipede Infestation

Atari’s 8-bit Centipede mushrooms have become a fashion statement for
retro-leaning hipsters. Unfortunately, this reimagined version of the 1980 Atari
game does away with the minimalistic iconic imagery and opts for a lush
dew-speckled glade as your new playing field. You are now Max, a manga-esque
survivor of the apocalypse. The game takes place years after “Missile Command”
fails to stop the enemy nuclear salvos and the radiation has mutated a horde of
giant insects that you must stop from consuming all of the remaining nutrients
left on earth.

Instead of a top-down 2-D view, the game now sports a ¾ perspective and the
360-degrees of shooting is akin to the 80s arcade game “Robotron” since insects
attack you from all sides, said Armando Soto, designer of Centipede Infestation.
As you advance through 35 levels, you fight various small and big bosses, which
are mutated uber-centipedes, moving very much like the multi-segmented villain
in the original game. Throughout the game, you can pick up new weapons that are
dropped by spiders and then, for very brief moments, toast enemies with a
flamethrower or acid bombs. It’s a very different game than the original but a
worthy successor in spirit.

Centipede Infestation will be available this Fall for the Nintendo Wii and
Nintendo 3DS. To read more of this article in the WSJ click here