Mac Game Review: Apeiron X

Ambrosia has taken an updated spin on the classic game, Centipede. Equipped with a XQJ-37 plasma cannon, you must destroy Cheech the Pentipede before he reaches the bottom of the screen. There are dozens of mushrooms that are scattered throughout the screen to block any clean shots. When shot, Cheech divides and leaves a fresh shroom behind. Shoot the head and not only do you get more points per hit, but you still get only one Cheech to deal with.

There are many supporting characters to either help or hurt you. Groucho occasionally plants new shrooms while he descends from the top of the screen. Larry the “scobster” occasionally eats shrooms. Gordon the Gecko poisons shrooms into indestructible super shrooms. Aliens might want to make a crop circle, destroying shrooms in order to do so. By the way, if any of them hits you, despite being good or bad, you die.

The trick, besides just shooting at Cheech’s head, is to line him up in tight spots where you get to shoot him multiple times without polluting the screen with extra mushrooms. He tightens up when he’s about to divide, which leaves him vulnerable to rapid shots if you can click fast enough. But you should come up with your own strategies since I can only reach a high score of 70,000. That Larry is dangerous.

Ambrosia is great at updating classic games with neat twists. Like Tetris, Apeiron X gets harder with the longer you play and the higher the level — or in this case, the wave — you get to. Apeiron X requires excellent hand-eye coordination (but which game doesn’t nowadays?) and the best mouse money can buy. It’s too bad that you can’t play using the directional keys and the space button on the keyboard. It would make the game a little more challenging. It would also make the all-time high score 49,479,001 by “luiyi28” of France seem 21st century inflated. See how you stack up to players around the world with the game’s built-in Internet high scores.

If you’re one to have extra mice around, then this game works for you. For you old school Mac users with the one-button mouse, then this game is perfect for you. Apeiron X used to be Mac OS 9 only, but a recent port has certified this modern classic Mac OS X compatible (10.2 or later).