Centipede Gun on Xbox — A Mutant Arcade Fever Dream With Surprising Depth
- XPN Network
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Some games whisper their intentions. Centipede Gun kicks the door down, hisses at you, and hands you a living weapon that looks like it crawled out of a biohazard lab rave. On Xbox, this chaotic twin‑stick shooter becomes a slick, adrenaline loop. It's the kind of game that doesn’t just want your attention, it wants your reflexes, your peripheral vision, and maybe your soul. And honestly? It’s a blast.
Centipede Gun doesn’t behave like the usual wave‑based shooter, and that’s the first thing that hits you. Instead of gliding around the arena with twin‑stick precision, you’re piloting a creature with its own sense of momentum, a segmented body that swings and pivots as you steer the head. The left stick moves the creature forward and back, while the right stick rotates the entire body, giving the centipede a slightly unwieldy, almost toy‑car feel. It’s strange for the first few minutes, but once you settle into its rhythm, the movement becomes part of the game’s tension. Every turn has weight. Every dodge has a delay. You’re not just avoiding enemies, you’re wrestling your own biology.
The real depth comes from the building phase between waves. Enemies drop coins, and those coins let you bolt new modules onto your centipede: guns, melee parts, support units, and passive boosters. Each segment snaps onto a grid, and placement matters more than you expect. A damage‑boosting module can empower multiple weapons if positioned cleverly, while stacking identical parts levels them up into stronger, more elaborate versions. It’s a system that feels part autobattler, part puzzle, part creature‑crafting experiment. You’re not just upgrading, you’re engineering a living machine, one square at a time.
Once the wave begins, the creature fires automatically at anything in range, leaving you to focus entirely on movement and positioning. This creates a hypnotic push‑and‑pull: weaving through clusters of enemies, circling elites, and trying to keep your strongest modules facing the right direction. The arenas are small, which makes every mistake feel immediate. If a segment gets destroyed mid‑wave, it’s gone until the round ends, and losing a key module can turn a comfortable run into a scramble for survival. Later waves introduce enemies that dash, teleport, or flood the screen with projectiles, forcing you to carve out tiny pockets of safety while your centipede chews through whatever’s in front of it.
Elite encounters break up the rhythm every few stages. These larger enemies don’t move much, but they unleash dense bullet patterns and sudden bursts of aggression that demand tighter movement than the regular waves. They’re not complicated fights, but they’re effective at testing whether your build actually works under pressure or if you’ve been coasting on luck.
Despite the escalating chaos, Centipede Gun is surprisingly approachable. Once you understand how to assemble a strong synergy, a cluster of modules that feed into each other, the game becomes a satisfying power fantasy. Some builds can melt entire waves before enemies even reach you, especially in New Game+ modes where the segment cap increases and the grid expands. It’s not a game that punishes you for experimenting; it rewards you with absurd combinations that feel almost broken in the best way.
Runs are short, usually around fifteen stages, but the game encourages replay through NG+ variants, an endless mode, and cosmetic unlocks that give your centipede new visual flair. The loop is tight, fast, and dangerously moreish. Even when you fail, you’re only a few minutes away from trying a completely different build, and that constant sense of possibility is what keeps the game alive long after the first clear
Pros
The creature‑building system is genuinely clever, letting you snap modules onto a grid and create wild synergies that feel earned rather than random.
Movement has a unique weight and rhythm, giving the centipede a personality of its own instead of behaving like a generic twin‑stick avatar.
Short, punchy runs make experimentation addictive, especially once you start chasing specific builds or trying to refine a strategy that almost worked.
Elite encounters and escalating waves keep the pace lively, offering just enough pressure to test your build without overwhelming new players.
New Game+ and endless modes extend the loop, giving you more space to push absurd combinations and see how far your creature can evolve.
Auto‑firing frees your brain for positioning, making the game approachable while still rewarding skillful movement.
Cons
The control scheme takes time to click, and some players may bounce off the “remote‑control centipede” feel before the game’s depth reveals itself.
Arena size can feel restrictive, especially when later waves introduce enemies with fast dashes or heavy projectile patterns.
Losing a key module mid‑wave can feel punishing, sometimes turning a strong run into a scramble through no real fault of your own.
Some builds become overwhelmingly powerful, which is fun but can flatten the difficulty curve in New Game+ runs.
Visual clarity occasionally suffers, especially when multiple upgraded modules fire simultaneously and the screen becomes a haze of particles.
Centipede Gun is one of those games that looks unassuming until it gets its hooks into you. The movement is odd, the arenas are small, and the premise is almost comically simple, yet the moment you start bolting modules onto your creature and watching your build come alive, the whole thing clicks. It’s a compact, confident arcade experience that rewards curiosity and experimentation, the kind of game you fire up for ten minutes and accidentally play for an hour. Not every run is perfect, and not every build feels balanced, but the core loop is so tight and so strangely satisfying that its rough edges become part of the charm. On Xbox, it’s a perfect palate‑cleanser: fast, weird, and endlessly replayable.
XPN Rating: 3 out of 5 (SILVER)
Centipede Gun is available now!
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