Just to be clear: I don't mean to spoil a top 10 thread with an argument about the relative significance of Xevious. I just enjoy the giving and taking reasons here-- both because I like thinking about Xevious, Centipede, etc., and because you guys make interesting points.
Rob wrote:The main Centipede-SI connection is with centipede movement, I think, but start shooting it, or watching it bounce off of mushrooms or hit a poisonous 'shroom. Doesn't automatically kill you if it reaches the bottom. Small similarity. Guess you might also compare mushrooms to bases, but different function. This is where the imagination comes into play. Much more of a leap from SI to Centipede than whatever space shooter to Xevious. Scramble already translated the shooter to a scrolling environment, with bombs.
This comment about Scramble *sounds* plausible at first, but Scramble was Konami's proto-Gradius in every way, and doesn't have a whole lot to do with Xevious. There isn't just the significant difference in perspective: we first look at the landscape *from above* rather than from the side; then we scroll upwards. But also:
(i) Xevious is striving to create an interesting balance of reward/risk with the scoring system.
(ii) Bombs in Xevious take on an entirely different function (principally for scoring) and are much more user-friendly.
(iii) With its hidden items Xevious has a kind of depth that was uncharacteristic at that time.
I'll grant that Centipede is an incredibly imaginative development of the Space Invader formula, and I can see why it would seem more fun than Xevious, which is a bit of a chore, to be honest. I still maintain that Xevious was a genre-defining moment. It's easy to miss that here in the States, where Xevious was far less popular. But in Japan Xevious was a huge deal, and clearly had an enormous impact/influence. If the Xevious series had gone anywhere, we would probably be looking back at it differently.
Ed Oscuro wrote:I think being a good game does more for the human race than being the first in a line of cookie-cutter clones that all use pretty obvious hardware features. As I noted before, the main thing Xevious has going for it (aside from the general clumsiness - especially when backpedaling, the ugly (although it gets mad points for the Nazca lines), and the fun sounds) is the bomb, which while realistic is one of the worst persistently (somewhat) used features in shooters ever.
The Xevious style bomb was never really popular in these games, although as I noted Namco tried to carry on with it, which led to such clunkers as Fighter & Attacker - games that should have been excellent but ended up with limited popularity because of a poor design choice.
I guess Xevious's lasting contribution to gaming was inspiring the name of the original developer of the Metal Slug games, the Irem spin-off (being a bit facetious here).
Compare this all to Centipede, which really has no relationship to Space Invaders aside from the single-screen setup, so far did it advance past it. Centipede is a fine example (centipede tunnels aside) of careful game design, with every single element designed with a clear purpose. Even the way the gun handles is considered an important aspect of the design, in opposition to simply holding onto the "hey we can do three shots at once now, this is better than Galaga fo sho" Xevious model. Almost the iconic example of a "Zen garden" theory of game design in practice.
I like the Zen garden comparison. Are you saying: the main thing Xevious has going for it is the bomb, the cool-ugly graphics/sounds, the controls, and its genre-defining status? Well, that's a lot, but it's hardly exhaustive. Its atmosphere is far more remarkable than that of Centipede. It's easy to lose sight of this because there is a way that Xevious' aesthetic is austere and somewhat ugly, but its strangeness and at times hypnotic character cannot be denied. Its scoring system and hidden items are also significant.
My point: we shouldn't lose sight of these and other strengths just because the game has uneven difficulty and lacks arcade thrills from the get go. In a way one of the games strengths is that it dares to depart from the quarter-swallowing hecticness of Defender or whatever, and asks you to look around, explore, enjoy the sights.
The lack of challenge compared to the arcade is disappointing. I still like it, but it's not as fun as the arcade. However, Stargate is another story. Very challenging and much closer to the arcade than Defender. Oddly enough, the 2600 version of Defender was my first version with the Entex tabletop as my second. After playing the arcade for the first time, I was shocked at how it used buttons like the Entex and even more shocked at how the Entex tabletop VFD game played more like the arcade than the 2600 version. 
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