(I made this around two years ago and never finished it so..... HERE YOU GO. XD)

(By the way, this was originally going to be a video so expect to see some *Insert Here* moments. :P Not that it matters, I doubt anyone will even read all this anyways but WHATEVER. ENJOY.)

Ah, Atari. A classic game company that made so many classic titles. Among those were some of my personal favorites, Centipede and Millipede. First off, Centipede, released in 1981, was a vertically oriented shoot em up classic designed by Ed Logg, who also made Super Breakout and co-developed the game Asteroids with Lyle Rains.

He also made Millipede, and co-designed the Gauntlet series. Also among the developers of this game was Dona Bailey, who helped out make both this game and Millipede. The game was released for the Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 all in the 80’s. In the game you control an Unidentified Flying Object (See what I did there? :D) Shooting up presumably evil centipedes, fleas, scorpions, spiders, and for some strange reason, mushrooms. Maybe the playing field is a garden? I honestly have no idea. But hey, that’s what I love about Atari, the graphics are so hard to tell what you’re looking at you gotta use your imagination! (Spongebob footage.)

Every Time the centipede hits a mushroom or the side of the screen, it goes horizontally down, closer to you, which is obviously bad, and although you can avoid it somewhat easily, I recommend you just kill it before it reaches you. So every time you defeat a centipede, the screen color changes and you fight another one, and another one, and do you see a pattern here? Yeah, like every game back then, it was an endless game where the only object was to get the high score and brag to all your friends at how cool you are. Another theme with enemies is that sometimes, when enemies are falling down from the top of the screen, they’ll leave behind more mushrooms, making it harder to move and hit the centipede.

Yeah, the mushrooms are just there to tick you off, so have fun with that! (Insert loud cuss joke here.) Around the middle to bottom screen is an invisible border that you can't pass, it’s there to prevent the player from roaming around too much and getting owned. (Wombo combo joke) Whenever you die, you get points for every damaged mushroom there is on the screen. So there’s one reason to shoot the mushrooms! And a funny random fact about the game, Head Designer Ed Logg actually stated the game was more for women players! Because women TOTALLY just LOVE bugs right? ^__^ (Insert female screaming to large insect joke)

But now, here’s the thing you all want to hear, is it a good game? Was the reception decent, and did it sell a lot of units? Of course it did! It had a billion ports, remixes, and remakes, it scored number 9 on the Softline’s top 30 Atari Games list, and the amount of cartridges it sold? (Insert funny obligatory it’s over 9,000 joke) So yeah, this game is obviously, very fun! Now we get on to what has to be the only sequel to an Atari game I know, Millipede. Basically, it’s centipede. But now with (Insert madness meme footage) SERIOUSLY, THIS GAME IS THE VERY DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF THE WORD CRAZY! (Insert literally joke) MORE ENEMIES, MORE DESTRUCTION, A NEW DDT BOX THAT EXPLODES WHEN YOU SHOOT IT, MORE POINTS MORE CHAOS MORE BUGS BWAHAAHHA!!!!!!!! (Insert wily megaman crazy footage) (o_O)

Now, we get to the sequel. Millipede was released in 1982, now also on the NES (Use webcam footage if you can) Franz Lanzinger also helped a bt in designing and testing, so props to him! Now, the main thing that separates Millipede from Centipede is, if you can’t see already, HOLY GOD there is a lot more bugs, but we’ll get there later. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s a new feature in the game called DDT, or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, (Insert joke on how the heck do I pronounce this) Is a floating object that there is about 4 of on the screen, and regenerate every now and then. When you shoot it, the DDT will explode, releasing presumably toxic fumes that will instantly kill parts of the millipede if it runs into it.

I don’t know if it can kill the other insects, but I’m pretty sure it can. Also new to the game are the new insects, and boy are there a lot of them! There’s the earwig, bee, inchworm, beetle, dragonfly, mosquito, and obviously, the millipede. Like in Centipede, which I didn’t mention earlier because I don’t know at all, every 10,000 points or so you get an extra life, helping you live longer, obviously. Also new to millipede is the ability to choose your starting score, and here is where I rip off wikipedia because this part is kind of hard to explain.

“Players can also choose at the start of the game whether to play at an advanced level, starting with a score that is a multiple of the number of points needed to earn an extra life (by default, 15,000). The gameplay is generally much more advanced than it would be had the player started with a score of 0 and worked their way up to that point level. The maximum advanced level allowed is a function of the preceding player's score, and games started at an advanced level where the player did not earn at least one extra life are not eligible for the high scoreboard.”

Alright then. Totally got all that! (Insert confused joke, oh the power of the pause recording button! sort of, anyway.)

Now let’s start talking about the bugs, which is going to be TONS easier since we’re already into Millipede.

Centi/Millipede: The main boss of this game. This little bugger is very annoying, as it moves very fast, and can ram into you if you aren’t careful. Just shoot it down, dodge it carefully, and you’ll be fine.

Earwig/Scorpion: The scorpion from the first game and the earwig from the second are really the same thing. They touch mushrooms, (That didn’t come out the way I thought it would.) and make them all shiny and magcal. What this does is whenever the Centi/Millipede touches the mushroom, (STOP SAYING THAT!) it goes straight to the bottom of the screen and will send you back to the first grade if you aren’t careful. Just shoot either the insect itself down, or the mushrooms, and you'll be fine.

Bee: Beeing (LOL) in both games, the bee appears in bonus round and requires two shots to take down. They create mushrooms and move very fast horizontally down, but as long as you’re careful, you’re golden! (Insert golden freddy image)

Spiders: I don’t know if I should love these things, or want them to burn in the dark fiery pits of the underworld. FIrst off, they move at a speed of mach 5 in a random irregular pattern, and if they touch you, (Why does that always come out wrong?) You’re dead as a doornail. Not that anything I know of is particularly dead about a doornail. And you know what else? They appear CONSTANTLY, and in the later levels, there can be two of them on the screen! Another mechanic with the spiders is the closer you shoot them, the more points you get, but since they move at a speed Super Sonic the Hedgehog would be jealous of, you might as well not even try. But as a little, sorry you suck here’s a free newb bonus lol, kind of freebie, they actually can help out, as they get rid of mushrooms! Maybe they aren’t all that bad, maybe all they want is a hug. (Insert giant scary spider picture.)

Inchworm: New in millipede, whenever you hit these, it slows every insect for a short period of time. Basic, somewhat useful, and not really annoying, thank god.