Cosmic Split

The Good
In the early Eighties, arcade games from Atari such as Pong, Asteroids, and Tempest were hits, and Centipede was no exception. Official ports made their way to every home system that was popular at the time. Still, this did not stop smaller companies from capitalizing on its success; and one such company was PPS who did their own version, called Cosmic Split.

Anyone who was born around the time this game was released and not heard of it has been under a rock. The object of the game is to go around a garden shooting at fragments of a centipede moving down toward you. You also have to deal with other creatures that get in your way. You are not restricted to moving left or right; you can also move upwards into the field in an attempt to kill the centipede faster.

The whole thing is set somewhere in space (hence the word “Cosmic” in the title). Graphic-wise, the mushrooms are drawn exactly like its parent, and I like the way your ship actually looks like a flask. As soon as you start the game, the spinning fireball appears, replacing the spider that appears every five seconds. The score/high score rests in an area on the right, along with the title of the game, which has the letter O replaced with one of the segments of the centipede. A sinister tune draws you into the game. There is no background music, and the sound effects are pretty basic.

The Bad
The game’s collision detection is quite poor; you can actually run over mushrooms instead of stopping after you have made contact with it. Also, one of the fragments re-appear at the top of the screen and make their way down toward the bottom of the screen. And why is the background a plain gray?

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Cosmic Split is a nice Centipede clone with a few graphic issues. Other than this, the hallmarks of the arcade game is here. Back at the time of this game's release, it doesn't matter whether the graphics or sound is good, as long as the playability is there. If you want a true version of the classic, you should hunt down the version from Atarisoft.