7 replies to this topic

[lucifershalo]

I played the proto Millipede via my SD Multicart
and was quite surprised and disappointed to find it pretty so-so
the movement of the millipede is quite sluggish
so I went on atariprotos.com to read what Tempest was thinking about it, he thinks it is really good....
is it me?
My version?

what do you think?

[Jess Ragan]

OMIGAWD WHY IS THERE A PICTURE OF YOU SITTING NAKED ON A LOG?!

[lucifershalo]

[Nuclear Pacman]

Yeah, Millipede isn't as polished as Centipede. You can tell it's unfinished, particularly with the AI, I find that it lacks any difficulty ramp and the game is quite easy because of this.

[Tempest]

Gunstarhero, on Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:11 PM, said:

Yeah, Millipede isn't as polished as Centipede. You can tell it's unfinished, particularly with the AI, I find that it lacks any difficulty ramp and the game is quite easy because of this.

Which version are you playing? There are two protos out there, one is finished and one is a late beta.

It was finished for the 5200 but not released. You can play the Atari 8-bit version which was released and see that it's the same game as the final proto.

Tempest

[Nuclear Pacman]

So after a hiatus of a few years playing my Millipede repro, I gave the game a whirl again last night. I played it back to back with Centipede. I think why I view Millipede as having an easier AI is because it's so much easier of a game than Centipede, and the scoring is ramped way the heck up. I can score 200k on Millipede no problem, but the game does get difficult enough for me to die obviously.

Centipede is just so perfectly tuned with the trak-ball controller, the movement extremely smooth and responsive. Millipede really needed some tweaking to this, and I hope my repro wasn't going to be the final version that was released. Yeah Millipede has alot more enemies and the DDT powerup, but graphically you see alot of choppy movement with the enemies on screen, and the audio is no where near the quality that Centipede replicated.

Millipede is on the disappointing side because even with the powerups, and the glut of extra enemies, it's practically a downgrade from Centipede just on sheer polish alone.

[darryl1970]

I was disappointed with Millipede after the 5200 Centipede, because it seemed like a step backwards. The programmer for 5200 Centipede chose to program software sprites, and the characters move very smoothly. The Millipede game uses the character graphic method that was used in the early 8-bit computer versions of Centipede. I makes for choppy gameplay. I am not an expert on the overhead needed for the 5200 Centipede routines, but it would be awesome if Millipede would have used the same methods for on screen movement. That may have been overly complicated, and it may have caused slowdown. It puts me in mind of 8-bit Defender. I think it is an awe-inspiring recreation, and I believe it uses a software sprite routine. However, adding the extra enemies for Stargate seemed to have really sucked some processing power and negated the smoothness of the software sprites. Just my amateur observation.

The Sword, on Mon Sep 5, 2011 7:58 AM, said:

So after a hiatus of a few years playing my Millipede repro, I gave the game a whirl again last night. I played it back to back with Centipede. I think why I view Millipede as having an easier AI is because it's so much easier of a game than Centipede, and the scoring is ramped way the heck up. I can score 200k on Millipede no problem, but the game does get difficult enough for me to die obviously.

Centipede is just so perfectly tuned with the trak-ball controller, the movement extremely smooth and responsive. Millipede really needed some tweaking to this, and I hope my repro wasn't going to be the final version that was released. Yeah Millipede has alot more enemies and the DDT powerup, but graphically you see alot of choppy movement with the enemies on screen, and the audio is no where near the quality that Centipede replicated.

Millipede is on the disappointing side because even with the powerups, and the glut of extra enemies, it's practically a downgrade from Centipede just on sheer polish alone.

[Mitch]

Was the 5200 Millipede a direct port of the A8 version? I'm too lazy to check right now.

Mitch