Black Widow: Recharged

When I reviewed Centipede a few weeks ago, I was convinced that Atari was actually onto something with their new Recharged series. It had a stylish presentation that honored the spirit of the original while simultaneously adding enough new to make it feel fresh and modern, leaving me impressed and excited for more. Now we get Black Widow, a remake of the 1982 action game that helped lay the groundwork for the dual-stick shooters that we love today. And while it may not be as well-known as Centipede, this updated shoot 'em up is yet another quality game making a case for the Recharged brand. But is this Black Widow better than the movie starring Scarlett Johansson? Well, that's just one of the questions I won't be answering in this video game review.

I'm not going to lie; I wasn't all that familiar with Black Widow before playing this game. Aside from checking it out for a few minutes in the Atari Anthology release on the original Xbox, I don't have a lot of hands-on experience with it. But like so many classic arcade titles from that era, all you need to do is play Black Widow for a few seconds to know why people loved it. It was extremely fast-paced for the time, had a cool concept and was one of the pioneers of the dual-stick shooter sub-genre. If this was in the local arcade when I was growing up, I would have played the hell out of it.

You take control of a spider who brisky moves across an oval web shooting at all of the insects and baddies that are trying to invade your home. As I'm sure you've already figured out, all of these different bugs act and attack in different ways. Some will swarm, some will shoot, some will blow up and, most importantly, some will drop off eggs. This is where the game takes a sharp turn from the typical shoot 'em up tropes, because our spider hero is able to grab onto the eggs and either toss it off the side or yeet it through the center of the webbing. But watch out, because if you wait too long, those eggs will hatch, and you definitely won't like what's inside.

Like most shoot 'em ups, a lot of the fun comes from picking up the power-ups. We get a lot of the usual suspects, including a spread shot, explosive rounds, a helpful shield and even a shot that shoots both in front of you and on the sides. I was happy to see some of the powers from Centipede also make a cameo here, such a slow-motion item and a ghost that will show up to scare all the enemies away.

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Speaking of Centipede, this Recharged version of Black Widow uses almost the exact same modes and interface. We're given a choice between the standard arcade mode, where you'll keep playing until you die, as well as a more comprehensive challenge mode built for both solo and co-op fun. These thirty challenge stages are where the real meat of the game is, and much like Centipede, it's the main reason to buy Black Widow. Some of the stages will have you trying to stay alive until the time runs out, while others are more about shooting the right kinds of bugs. Some of the most fun tasks involve you tossing as many eggs off the side of the web as possible, since that's one of the few mechanics in Black Widow that you don't see in other shooters.

The problem is that all this is far too familiar. At first, I was excited to dive into the challenges, since I already love this kind of shoot 'em up. But what I found were challenges that didn't seem as original as fresh as those in Centipede. There's a lot of repetition in the types of tasks you take on, something that makes this mode feel a little generic. The last Recharged game I played had all kinds of creative challenges that not only played with the level designs, but also the way we played Centipede. It forced you to look at the classic game in a whole new way, something that doesn't happen in Black Widow.

As much as I would like to blame the repeating challenges, that's not the real problem. The issue is that Black Widow is ultimately undermined by the sub-genre. We've seen hundreds (if not thousands) of similar dual-stick shooters in the past fifteen years, with many of them doing all the same things we see in this Recharged port. That wasn't the case with Centipede. Sure, overhead shooters still exist, but almost none of them are like Centipede. By upgrading that game, Atari reminded us why the arcade original was so much fun. That's not the dynamic at play in Black Widow, and, frankly, there are a lot of other dual-stick shooters that do this kind of thing a lot better.

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I also need to point out that the arcade mode is terrible, which seems to be a trend with these Recharged games. Aside from giving you the option to play with a friend, there's not much to the standard arcade mode. Like I said before, you play until you die. That's it. You don't even get multiple lives or continues, you simply die and start over from scratch. That's exactly how it was with Centipede, too. If Atari is going to continue with this series, then I hope they start putting more time into this mode. All it takes is a few extra options or ways to tinker with the rules. Maybe there's a time limit or a way to only play with certain guns. At the very least, give us a couple lives to work with and a way to earn more. That's standard stuff in arcade games, including the 1982 arcade classic this game is based on.

Visually, Black Widow: Recharged looks great. I like the throwback look and how the simple graphics evoke the spirit of the old school vector games. That said, I do wish the levels had more variety to them. Or really any variety at all. The colors change slightly if you play the arcade mode long enough, but it's not enough. I also wasn't a huge fan of the soundtrack. To be fair, the music itself is fine, but there's an obnoxious buzzing sound that ruins every song they throw at you. Thankfully, the gameplay is more fun than the buzzing, but you've definitely seen and done all this before.