Millipede: anyone else disappointed?

[Chris-in-NJ]

Having got myself Millipede in the Thanksgiving sale, I have to say I feel a bit disappointed with it. There are three things IMHO that make it less than perfect:

 

1. It starts it way too slow, the millipede itself doesn't stand a chance!

 

2. The bonus every 10,000. Every arcade version I've played has always had the bonus every 15,000. I played quite a few games of it too earlier this year as the cafeteria at work had one of those Millipede/Centipede/Missile Command 3-in-1 cabinets.

 

3. The insect swarms last too long, much longer than in the arcade.

 

These three together led me to getting over 120,000 on my very first game, with my score starting at 0! The slowness tends to go away gradually; it's as if the programmer knew the system couldn't handle all the movement and compensated for it at the start of the game. The long insect swarms and the 10,000 bonus intervals often led me to getting two extra lives in a single swarm.

 

Something's not right when Centipede is much harder on its regular setting... These games at least proved to me that my battered old Trak-Ball still works perfectly after being kept in the porch at my parents' house for more than 15 years suffering the ravages of the seasons :-)

[JB]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Millipede was never completed.

That's a beta, and hasn't been tuned like a release version would've been.

[Tempest]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Millipede was never completed.

That's a beta, and hasn't been tuned like a release version would've been.

 

Yes and no. There's a beta version out there, but there's also a complete version as well. Since Millipede was ported and released for the 400/800/XL/XE, the 5200 version had to have been finished.

 

Personally I think Millipede is great. I love the 5200 version, especially with the track-ball.

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/m...e/millipede.htm

 

Tempest

[+Allan]

Personally I think Millipede is great.  I love the 5200 version, especially with the track-ball.

 

Ditto! Millipede is one of my top 10 favorite 5200 games. This game makes the track-ball shine.

 

Allan

[Gregory DG]

I played the 8-bit cart to death... It was a great and frantic game! Even using a joystick I could get quite far through it.

[Justin42]

I just got Millipede as well (ordered it when I finally won an auction for a NIB 5200 trak-ball! ) and I'm a bit disappointed how it works with the trak-ball... it seems like the control wasn't close to being done, as I frequently feel like I'm not really in control; the shooter (erm, what's it called? ) keeps wanting to go "up"...

 

I also have Centipede which works absolutely perfectly so I know the trak-ball isn't the problem. (5200 Centipede + trak-ball is absolutely wooonderful! )

 

Maybe it's the curse of nostaliga-- I played Millipede to death on my XL back in the 80's.... (with a joystick!

[jetset]

Oh man I LOVE Millipede! I think it's a great port from the arcade. True it is a little easy...and I don't have a trackball at the moment (actually am looking for one right now), but to me at least it looks and plays awesome! Centipede is still better though. Nothing beats the original imo.

[Chris-in-NJ]

I tried playing it with a 7800 joystick yesterday, and IMHO the gameplay is better than with the Trak-ball. I managed to get over 200,000 first time with the joystick, and man this game gets reaaaaally fast that high up! I take back what I said a few days ago, this is a superb version of the game!

 

On a related note, my 4-year-old nephew got the 10-in-1 2600 joystick game for Christmas, and he says he loves Centipede. Wait till he sees my 5200 version!

[Charlie_]

Millipede supports the trak-ball, but I don't think it uses it the same as Centipede does. I think your player moves at a constant speed. So using a joystick or trak-ball gets the same movement. Not like Centipede where if you whip the track-ball your player goes flying off in that direction at high speed.

 

Charlie