The Epic Store is offering two arcade classics for free: Black Widow: Recharged and Centipede: Recharged. What are the remakes about and is the free content pack for Dauntless worth it?
Three things for free: This time you can grab the remakes of the arcade classics Black Widow: Recharged and Centipede: Recharged for free and keep them forever. As in the originals, you steer a spider or a small gun and shoot down intruders and obstacles. Mouse control is only available for the latter, however.
You can also grab an equipment pack including bonus currency and three days of premium access for the Action-RPG Dauntless How the free-to-play online title has changed since its release in 2019
Black Widow: Recharged, Centipede: Recharged, and the Dauntless pack will be available for free on the Epic Games Store from March 3-10. If you grab them during this period, they’re yours permanently.
But even free games cost time. That’s why we’re giving you all the info you need here to make an informed decision: Are the two arcade games something for those who don’t have a phobia of creepy-crawlies?
This is what Black Widow and Centipede: Recharged are all about
Atari lets you master 30 new challenges in each of the arcade classics with reworked graphics and original soundtrack. Alternatively, there is also an iconic arcade mode in both games. In Black Widow, however, one or two controllers are absolutely necessary, as mouse and keyboard are unfortunately not supported.
In addition to graphics and challenges, new features include collectable power-ups, a worldwide and friends’ leaderboard and a local co-op mode with a shared score (so you don’t compete against each other). This mode can also be played over the internet via Steam’s “Remote Play Together” function.
Otherwise, it is a typical arcade action shooter in which you hold down the fire button until you are surrounded by barriers and enemies at an inopportune moment and sent to the game-over screen.
You can get an impression of what old arcade titles like this feel like in the official trailer for Black Widow:
Will it be worth the download?
Arcade nostalgics are certainly in for a treat with Atari’s remakes of the old classics, but outside of that niche, few will recognise the names or warm to the old-fashioned gameplay.
While high-difficulty roguelikes continue to celebrate great success, making skill games like this one artificially difficult as well by dumbing down the original three arcade lives to a single one feels unnecessarily harsh.
On Steam, (Black Widow: Recharged) and (Centipede: Recharged) have mostly positive reviews, but the total number of player opinions is in the low double digits. For a few whimsical (co-op) hours, however, the free games will be well worth it if you have a longing for the old slot machine feeling.
Whether the nice little content package for Dauntless makes sense for you, of course, depends entirely on whether you like the main game.
Will you buy the latest Epic gifts? Or are you not into arcade games or spiders at all? Tell us in the comments!
