Atari 2600 Centipede is an audiovisual masterpiece!

     Centipede is one of the most popular video games ever created for the Atari 2600 video game system.  The object of the game is for the player to shoot and destroy centipedes, fleas, mushrooms, scorpions, and spiders.  The player can get destroyed by most objects on the screen except for the mushrooms which only are deterrents to movement.  The battles which take place between the player and centipedes, fleas, scorpions, and spiders are portrayed in a pixel format. 

     Centipede is cubist art represented via pixels.  A bunch of squares equal the segment of each segment of the centipede on the screen.  The player itself is represented by a square which shoots squares that can destroy the square centipedes on the screen piece by piece.  In the midst of the battle are bouncing fleas which are  in a square sort of way.  The scorpions and the spiders are all squarely in a pixel sort of format as are the mushrooms too.  A bunch of square looking numbers occasionally pop up during the game play when a centipede, flea, scorpion, or spider is destroyed.  At the bottom of the screen numbers are squarely listed to commemorate the death toll of the centipedes, fleas, scorpions, and spiders who have been destroyed by the player within a grisly sort points system.  The square reality within the pixel brutality of Centipede conveys surreal themes and subject matter which could be brought up for dialogue.

     Centipede can be interpreted in many different ways to convey a dialogue within an electronic allegory.  All of the characters of Centipede are but inhabitants within an ecosystem.  There is no way for any sort of armistice between the player or the centipedes, fleas, scorpions, and spiders of the video game.  Pixels and squares are everything that all the characters have in common, yet the there is a disconnect between the player and the other characters as they do battle in a conflict for survival.  The numbers on the screen glorify the violence perpetuated against the centipedes, fleas, scorpions and spiders, yet they themselves are also partly to blame for provoking the player into destroying them.  The characters of Centipede give zero justification nor incentive for the player to stop shooting at them.  Electronic beeps signify the battle cries of all the characters who fight within the electronic ecosystem of Centipede.  While thumping noises instigate both player and characters into fighting each other.  In the midst of all the violence of Centipede are the mushrooms which neither help nor destroy the player.  Both player and mushroom are square yet there is no compassion between the two. Perhaps the mushrooms portray the passive aggressive nature of voyeurs who delight in watching the players and characters feud within the confines of an ecosystem based on pixels within an electronic battlefield.  Atari 2600 Centipede represents an existential crises of social mobbing with the centipede, fleas, scorpion, and spider all united against a single player while everything is within the cubist portrait of violence on the video screen.  Atari 2600 Centipede is an artwork for people who wish to see conflict through a cubist or pixel perspective.  Atari 2600 Centipede is an audiovisual masterpiece!

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