LG / game / CENTIPEDE
REVIEW
Centipede on LG webOS borrows a famous name and not much else.
An unofficial webOS arcade clone trading on Atari's 1980 trademark. The shooting works; the branding question doesn't.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 2 MIN READ
Centipede on LG webOS is a top-down grid-shooter sharing its title with the 1980 Atari arcade cabinet. That overlap is the whole story. The shooting loop underneath the trademark is competent — inputs land, the creature descends at the right pace, the mushroom field reroutes its path on each pass — but the question of whether a webOS app called “Centipede” without an Atari credit has the right to use the name hangs over every other observation.
Atari has spent the last decade carefully rebuilding its catalogue under official re-releases — the Atari 50 anniversary collection, the Atari VCS, licensed mobile ports — and a smart-TV app that resembles the original closely enough to invite the comparison while omitting the credit is the kind of release that tends to be quietly removed once the trademark holder notices. We can’t say with certainty whether this one is authorised; the store listing offers no signal either way.
Treated as a generic arcade shooter with a confusing name, this is a 5-and-change install. The mechanics are fine, the presentation is thin, and the obvious comparison is to the official Atari product readers can buy on console or phone with no provenance ambiguity at all.
This is a competent grid-shooter sharing a famous title with the 1980 Atari original, and that overlap is the whole problem.
FEATURES
Centipede on LG webOS is a top-down arcade shooter in the lineage of the 1980 Atari original — a segmented creature winds down a mushroom field, the player sits at the bottom of the screen and shoots upward, spiders and fleas intrude from the sides. Movement is constrained to a narrow strip near the base; firing is continuous; mushrooms left on the field reroute the creature on each descent.
Controls map to the Magic Remote's directional pad and a single fire button. There is no pointer-based aim, which is the more interesting webOS-native input mode and a missed opportunity here. Levels escalate by speed and segment count rather than introducing new mechanics, and the run ends when the creature reaches the bottom row and the player is hit.
Presentation is functional rather than reverent — pixel-art creature, flat mushroom sprites, a synth loop on top. There is no acknowledgement on the store listing of any Atari licensing arrangement, which raises the obvious question about whether this is an authorised release.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The shooting itself is responsive. Inputs register without the noticeable latency that afflicts a lot of webOS arcade ports, and the difficulty curve in the first dozen levels is paced about right — enough pressure to keep a TV-arcade session interesting, not so steep that a casual player washes out in minutes.
At a 5-star Galaxy-style rating (note: LG's webOS does not collect ratings the way Google Play does, so headline numbers here should be treated cautiously) it has at least cleared whatever quality bar its handful of reviewers were applying. For the price-of-entry on a TV-side casual shooter, the loop holds up.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The trademark question is unavoidable. Centipede is Atari's, the 1980 arcade cabinet and every official re-release since trace back to that ownership, and a webOS app shipping under the unqualified title "Centipede" without a visible Atari credit is at minimum confusing and at worst infringing. We are not in a position to adjudicate the licensing — but readers should know that the official Atari catalogue on smart TVs has historically been distributed through Plex Arcade and the Atari VCS rather than as standalone webOS apps.
Beyond the branding, the game is mechanically thin. No leaderboards, no save state between sessions, no remix modes, no acknowledgement of the 46 years of arcade-shooter design that have happened since the original. Magic Remote pointer aim is absent. The art does not commit to either pixel-perfect nostalgia or a modern redraw — it sits in an uncanny middle.
CONCLUSION
Hard to recommend. The shooter underneath is fine, but a TV arcade app riding on a famous trademark without visible authorisation is exactly the kind of install that ends up disappearing from the store six months later. LG webOS owners curious about the original Centipede are better served by an Atari 50 purchase on a console, or by Atari's own mobile clients on iOS and Android where the trademark provenance is clear.