Widows Revenge

The Good
If you were around in the early Eighties, chances are that you have heard of Centipede, Atari’s popular arcade game which made its way on a handful of platforms, including the Commodore 64. The game got a sequel only a year later, but an official port never made its way on the C-64. An official game for the machine, by Nükekop in 1983, was even better than Atari's offerings.

Upon starting the game, Widow’s Revenge acts like the original arcade game, complete with attract mode and score advance table. You can adjust a few parameters, including the number of players and also whether you want the high resolution mode. (From my experience, the HR mode doesn’t do jack.)

In the game, you can move your ship left or right to avoid being rammed into by the bat who comes toward you. On par with the original game, you can also move upwards into the garden, making it easier for you to kill the numerous white eggs. What is amusing about the game is the rate at which the same spider hurl webs at you (it seems every five seconds). You can destroy these webs with your laser, but only if you are accurate.

I like the fixed threshold for a bonus life. It is always set at 10000 points. You can spend your time blowing up eggs and destroying everything that is visible. The color scheme changes after each level and with every game. One minute, you’re battling the beasties in a gray background, but the next the same background turns green. So there is a bit of variety to the game. Sonics are not bad either, with “whoosh” sounds and a nice little ditty that plays every time you are awarded a bonus life.

The Bad
There is nothing bad about this game.

The Bottom Line
Widow's Revenge is a complete overhaul of Centipede that was released only on one system. It is somewhat difficult in that the antagonist of the game retailerates by hurling spider webs at you every five seconds. The game behaves like the arcade version, with its attract mode and score advance table. The graphics and sound is good, and this title should be in the hands of die-hard arcade fans.