Centipede (iPhone)

With so many arcade knock-offs hitting the App Store, it's good to see Atari setting the record straight. After all, the long-standing company created a majority of these classics, of which far too many clones have clogged the iPhone library.

Centipede has seemingly escaped such treatment, leaving it to Atari to revive this creepy-crawly adventure. While the game possesses a limited number of features, a shiny new exoskeleton gives it renewed appeal.

Centipede casts you in the role of a bug zapper. Charged with squashing every insect that flies, crawls, and skitters about the screen, your primary objective is to destroy the centipedes that scamper from the top of the screen.

You do this by touching either red dot on the upper corners of the screen to fire. Movement is handled with your thumb along the bottom of the screen.

Three modes let you bug out: Ultra, Arcade, and Classic. As implied, Classic mode blasts you to the past in a faithful reproduction of the original game. More than anything else, it's a fine lesson in how far gaming has come. From a massive arcade box to a credit card-sized phone, it's a novel thought but not nearly as fun as the modernized modes.

Both Ultra and Arcade modes feature the new look, with the former taking on a series of nine special power-ups, introducing a wild dimension to Ultra that makes it the mode of choice.

Take the anti-centipede laser, for example. Passing right through mushrooms, it hones in on centipedes coming down the screen for quick kills. Other power-ups include a triple shot, reflect shot, time slow, and even swarm, which drafts five bugs onto the screen for extra points.

Since the power-ups only last a few short seconds, the game's balance is hardly ruined. In fact, it ratchets up the intensity because you can handle more than you would without the power-ups. Not to imply that Arcade mode has a plodding pace - the game's just more frenzied in Ultra.

All three modes support multiplayer, although it's totally underwhelming. Two players can take turns passing the handset to earn the highest score in the chosen mode. You're able to do this using the single player mode and compare ranks on the scoreboard, which renders multiplayer obsolete.

It would have been preferable to include online rankings instead. Along with online scoring, other features such as support of the accelerometer or customizable shooters would have taken the game to the next level.