{"id":1654,"date":"2024-10-23T21:39:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T01:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2024-10-27T12:57:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T16:57:23","slug":"a-review-of-tempest-2000-one-of-gamings-greatest-masterpieces-and-its-arcade-forbear-tempest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/?p=1654","title":{"rendered":"A Review of Tempest 2000, One of Gaming’s Greatest Masterpieces, And its Arcade Forbear Tempest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to try to review some of my favorite games.\u00a0 I’m starting with the classic console game I have played the most this year so far, and one of the all-time best.<\/span><\/p>\n

Title: Tempest 2000
\nPlatform<\/strong>: Atari Jaguar<\/span>
\nRelease Date<\/strong>: 1994<\/span>
\nDeveloper<\/strong>: Llamasoft<\/span>
\nPublisher<\/strong>: Atari Inc. (1984-1996)<\/span>
\nFormat<\/strong>: Cartridge in cardboard box (A music CD of the soundtrack was also released later on)<\/span><\/p>\n

Ports<\/strong>: There are many ports of this game. Emulated ports are in the Atari 50 collection for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One\/Series, and PS4\/PS5.\u00a0 Older, more heavily altered ports were released back in the ’90s on PC, Saturn, and PlayStation (as Tempest X3).\u00a0 This review is of the game being played on real hardware on an actual Jaguar.\u00a0 I have discussed the PlayStation version of Tempest X3 and the Atari 5200 version of the original Tempest before, but not the Jaguar title or the arcade game itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest 2000 is Jeff Minter’s magnum opus.\u00a0 This exceptional masterpiece is is one of my favorite games ever. T2K is one of those ‘peak of the mountain’ games, one of those titles that shows how amazing gaming can be at its absolute best.\u00a0 And that’s the problem, for this review at least: praise is hard! It is, sadly, often easier to criticize than to praise, to write or say reams of reasons why something is bad than to write ones why something is great.\u00a0 I guess we’ll see how this goes, because there aren’t many things to criticize about T2K.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest, the original arcade game, was released in 1981 in arcades by Atari, and was programmed by Dave Theurer, the same man who also designed the famous megahit Missile Command.\u00a0 It was a successful game, but not on Missile Command’s level of popularity.\u00a0 While Tempest 2000’s developer Jeff Minter was not involved at all with its development, Minter was an active game developer at the time.\u00a0 However, at that point he was making smaller games for home computers, not arcade games.\u00a0 He may not have worked with Atari until the early ’90s, but Jeff Minter is probably gaming’s longest-termed programmer.\u00a0 He with an amazing record of consistency for spending the last 45 years almost exclusively making simple-looking, pre-crash-styled arcade-inspired score-focused games.\u00a0 If you look at a Jeff Minter game from the early ’80s such as Aggressor or Gridrunner and then his most recent releases such as Polybius or Akka Arrh, you will see the most consistent record in gaming.\u00a0 All four titles are easily recognizable as Jeff Minter productions.\u00a0 I have loved Minter’s games ever since I first played Llamatron 2112 back in the early ’90s.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Review of the Original Arcade Game Tempest<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At its core, Tempest 2000 is a remake of the 1981 vector-graphcis arcade game Tempest.\u00a0 So, I should discuss the arcade game first.\u00a0 Tempest is a space shooter, a popular genre at the time, except instead of shooting enemies on the top of the screen, you shoot from the edge of the screen at enemies coming at you from the center.\u00a0 It was inspired by Space Invaders turned vertical, crossed with a nightmare of Theurer’s about monsters crawling out of a hole. (Source: https:\/\/arcadeblogger.com\/2018\/01\/19\/atari-tempest-dave-theurers-masterpiece\/)<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning that makes sense, because I have long seen the nightmarish, horror-esque element of this game and Tempest 2000 as well.\u00a0 Tempest is kind of a horror game.\u00a0 It isn’t, but it is.\u00a0 This is a game designed to make you focus, but also to kind of creep you out and instill a sense of dread in the player, as the monsters just keep coming, and coming, out of the depths… until eventually, you get overrun.\u00a0 Tempest and T2K are maybe the best horror games ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, the central gameplay of both titles is the same: you control a little ship, and can move around the outer, and upper, edge of the play area, which is called the ‘web’.\u00a0 The web is made up of lines going from the middle of the screen to the upper edge where you are, connecting them in a vector shape.\u00a0 Your ship is pointing towards the center of the screen, aiming towards the middle where the enemies come from.\u00a0 If the enemies reach the top of the web, they move around the top and once either an enemy touches your ship or you run into one of their shots you die and lose a life.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you move left or right you flip around the edge, moving between sectors of the top of the web.\u00a0 You can only move in two directions in this game, so while the game is three dimensional in that enemies move up a 3d angled route towards you, you only need to worry about moving horizontally to shoot them.\u00a0 For controls, the original arcade game used a spinner-style stick, giving you precise analog control of your movement.\u00a0 You shoot with one button and use the Superzapper, a superbomb which kills all enemies on screen.\u00a0 You can use the Superzapper once per level.\u00a0 Once all enemies in a stage are dead you clear it and move on to the next web.\u00a0 If you die, you restart the stage from the beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n

The game has 16 stage layouts, and after you clear stage 16 the web color changes.\u00a0 There are six colors: blue, red, yellow, cyan, invisible, and lastly green.\u00a0 After level 99 the levels stop increasing and you just play at that difficulty until you run out of lives, if you were so lucky to get that far.\u00a0 One interesting feature, though, is that there is a continue function of sorts!\u00a0 When you get game over, you can continue from the last checkpoint level that you reached.\u00a0 You can select which level you want to start from from the checkpoint levels you have reached.\u00a0 The game doesn’t save these permanently, of course, so if powered off the checkpoints and scores will be lost, but still it’s a very interesting feature, as continuing in arcade games like that was not really a thing when this game released in 1981.<\/span><\/p>\n

When enemies reach the top of the web, you have two options. One is to try to shoot them as they flip onto your section of web.\u00a0 Yes, you can do this, so letting enemies get to the top is not an instant loss, but timing that shot is tricky.\u00a0 You can also use the Superzapper of course, if you still have it.\u00a0 It’s much better to get rid of enemies before they reach the top, but sometimes it won’t be possible as you get farther in and enemy counts increase.\u00a0 Overall Tempest is a great game, with a creepy vibe and a great balance of challenge and the feeling that if you play well you can get far in the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

As with most pre-crash games, Tempest has no music and simple presentation, but the graphics were groundbreaking at the time.\u00a0 The graphics are amazing looking with that color vector display, and the sound effects are fantastic and fit perfectly as well.\u00a0 The striking look of this game is extremely memorable.\u00a0 Color vector displays were a rarely seen, expensive technical feat, and this game uses that kind of display and it looks amazing!\u00a0 Still, as was common at the time there is no background other than black space except for some stars that appear while you fly from one level to the next.\u00a0 The result focuses you on the action.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is of course an endless game you play for score . Tempest is intense, though.\u00a0 Where a game of Donkey Kong or Space Invaders can last many hours, the world record for Tempest at its hardest settings is a video about 20 minutes long.\u00a0 You will die.\u00a0 There are several different web designs, but the stage layouts repeat after a few stages and then you’re on the endless loop until Game Over.\u00a0 And while there are a handful of enemy types, there aren’t all that many of those either.\u00a0 There is no background either of course, just black space.\u00a0 Still, the wireframe 3d vector graphics look amazing, and the gameplay is a lot of fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

However… however, I find it hard to play Tempest because as good as it is, I could be playing Tempest 2000, the game that takes Tempests’ model and improves on it in almost every way.\u00a0 And when I want to play a Tempest game, that is usually what I do: play Tempest 2000.\u00a0 Tempest 4000 (for modern consoles) is also quite good, but while Jeff Minter has made multiple Tempest-style games over the past three decades and all are great, none quite match the exceptional genius of his first effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest 2000: The Fundamentals and Features<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest 2000 is a modernized update of Tempest.\u00a0 The main mode is called Tempest 2000 mode.\u00a0 The core gameplay is identical, with you moving around the top edge of weblike stages, shooting in at the enemies moving up the web at you.\u00a0 You again need to dodge their fire while taking them out before they reach the top.\u00a0 This time there are interesting varied backgrounds, though, as the game has trippy light synthesizer-style backgrounds and pounding techno music.\u00a0 There are also new powerups, new enemy types, a lot of new maps, an actual ending when you reach level 100, a harder difficulty unlocked after clearing the game, the ability to continue from every few levels so that you don’t need to start the game over every time you get Game Over, and more.\u00a0 Outside of the main Tempest 2000 mode the game has several other modes as well.\u00a0 There is a two player multiplayer versus mode; a port of the original Tempest game but of course with regular graphics instead of vector ones; Tempest Plus, a mode which is basically standard Tempest but with T2K’s visuals; and an options menu with some interesting options in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The game saves your settings, which levels you can start from, as you can start from the last odd-numbered level you have beaten if you wish — and the high score table.\u00a0 The game saves everything necessary.\u00a0 The Jaguar is the first console where almost every single game supports saving, and it’s a hugely important and wonderful change versus what you see on other classic consoles.\u00a0 Even in years after the Jag’s release a lot of console games didn’t have saving in some genres — no Sega CD shmup supports high score saving, for example, and even some PlayStation shooters don’t.\u00a0 But on Jaguar all official games save at least scores and settings.\u00a0 It hugely helps this kind of game for the game itself to keep track of your scores, no need to write down your best scores or take screenshots or something. And because all Jaguar saving is done to EEPROM flash memory chips and not batteries, the system has no problem with old batteries, unlike most of its contemporaries.\u00a0 I think that that everything saves is the number one most next-gen thing about the Jaguar as a console; even the games that otherwise look like last-gen ports almost always have saving added. Tempest 2000 takes advantage of it well.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the single player modes Tempest 2000 plays almost exactly the same as the original Tempest, just improved in every way other than losing that amazing color vector display. T2K has the best graphics possible with its regular pixel-graphics display, but vectors do look amazing in a way no regular display can match.\u00a0 Ah well.\u00a0 So, as with the original Tempest, you move around the top of levels, shooting at enemies climbing up at you.\u00a0 All enemies from the original game return, with some new additions to the roster.\u00a0 New enemies get introduced once you get farther in the game, as well.\u00a0 As with the original the web colors change every 16 levels, but this time you don’t only see the same 16 levels over and over, new webs are introduced as you progress.\u00a0 It’s Tempest, but more.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Controls and Powerups<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The controls are, by default, a small step below the arcade game, because the standard Jaguar controller only has a d-pad on it for movement.\u00a0 I think the digital controls are just fine, as each press moves you to the next section of the web, but if you want analog controls the game does support them, which is pretty awesome — Jeff Minter made sure to include hidden support for a rotary-stick controller, even though no such controller existed for the system at the time other than a homebrew one hacked together.\u00a0 I do not have one right now, though I really should get one, but it’s just fantastic that the option exists.\u00a0 It means that controls are even with the arcade game.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for buttons, T2K uses three, the three regular Jaguar face buttons, for Shoot, Jump once you have it in a level, and Superzapper.\u00a0 On the last of those, yes the Superzapper bomb returns to help you out, as beofre usable once per stage.\u00a0 Also, once again, if you die you restart the current level from the beginning.\u00a0 Otherwise, Start pauses as you would expect.\u00a0 The keypad is used for muting the music as usual — a keypad music mute feature is common on Jag games with music — and for shifting the view around, adjusting how the web moves on stages that go slightly over one screen in size, adjusting the screen size, and such. It’s a good use of the keypad for something a game for a newer platform would put on a second stick or somesuch.\u00a0 You won’t need to touch it during play, thankfully.\u00a0 The Jaguar controller is surprisingly comfortable, I think; its bad reputation is hightly over-stated.\u00a0 Using the keypad during play is awkward and not great for anything fast-paced, but for games that only use the dpad and three main face buttons, or for games that just use it for options, I think the Jag controller is just fine.\u00a0 T2K controls well with the regular controller, I’ve never had any issues with it.\u00a0 I’m sure that the rotary controller controls are even better, but these are quite good.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

On top of that, some other new powerups have been added.\u00a0 These powerups all only last for the current level, as everything resets to default no powerups once you get to the next stage.\u00a0 The way it works is that some enemies drop a powerup which then moves up the screen.\u00a0 Get in position to grab it as it flies upwards and you get one level of powerup.\u00a0 The first enemy you kill in a stage will always drop a powerup, and this powerup gives you a more powerful shot.\u00a0 It’s essential to get this because the gun without it is very weak. Some time later more powerups will drop.\u00a0 The next few will give you a Jump button and an AI droid ally.\u00a0 The Jump button uses your third face button and jumps upwards, moving you out of the way of enemies if they reach the top of the web.\u00a0 They can’t jump to hit you up there, but you could still get hit by shots, and of course you will need to land somewhere clear at the end of your jump so while helpful the jump won’t keep you alive if there are too many enemies on top of the web.\u00a0 Still, it’s great.\u00a0 The AI Droid is similar to the one in Llamatron 2112, and moves around on its own a above the web shooting down at enemies.\u00a0 It cannot be killed and is fantastic if you can get enough powerups to get it.\u00a0 There is also a rare random-drop powerup which immediately skips the current level, and once you have all other powerups in a stage further powerups give you a 2000 point bonus.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bonus Games<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is one more powerup, however.\u00a0 Lastly powerup-wise, getting enough powerups in a level will give you a green triangle.\u00a0 You can only get one green triangle per level.\u00a0 Once you get three green triangles, you go to a bonus stage.\u00a0 There are several different types of bonus stages, changing as you proceed through the game. The first bonus stage type has you flying through space, trying to fly through gates.\u00a0 There are no enemies, you just move with the d-pad to get through the gates.\u00a0 This bonus game is a lot of fun, it’s very calming after the intense action.\u00a0 However, if you want the best possible scores you will want to avoid actually completing the bonus games, because if you finish a bonus game you warp forward five levels.\u00a0 You get a point bonus, but the point bonus is a whole lot less points than you would have gotten if you played those levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are three different layouts of each bonus game, though you will never complete all three in a single game because after a few skips you are sure to have progressed far enough to get to the second bonus game type.\u00a0 That one I find much, much harder — you have to stay on a green track that curves around a tube that you are driving through.\u00a0 I must admit,\u00a0 I don’t think I have ever completed a stay on the green track bonus stage, and if I ever did I sure haven’t again.\u00a0 Still, it’s fun enough.\u00a0 After that… well, there is a third type of bonus game later on, but play the game to find out what it is.\u00a0 The bonus games are fun stuff and do a great job of giving you a break from the frenetic action.\u00a0 I particularly love the first bonus game, flying down a tunnel through those rings is great fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Enemies and Scoring<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When you fire, enemies in front of you and their regular shots die.\u00a0 That latter point is important: your shots and most enemy shots kill eachother.\u00a0 Some enemy attacks cannot be stopped, however, so you need to stay on your guard.<\/span><\/p>\n

The enemies you will face include: basic ones which go straight up one path, heading towards the top; ones which do that but also shoot upwards; larger ones that split into multiple regular enemies once shot; ones which move around between paths as they go, trying to get closer to your position; a strong monster which has these two invincible scythelike limbs it shoots out you before going to the top that you must avoid while trying to shoot the main body; small enemies which stay at the bottom and electrify a whole section of the web, killing you instantly if you are in that section after it lights up; spikes, which can be in lanes towards the centerand will kill you if you run into them while traveling through the web after beating the level; and some more that come in to play later.\u00a0 There are a total of ten enemy types.\u00a0 The enemy variety is enough to keep things interesting while remaining easy enough to remember and identify each type.<\/span><\/p>\n

As you kill your foes you get points, and scoring in this game is simple: kill stuff, get points. There is no complex scoring system and that is entirely fine with me, there’s more than enough here to keep anyone hooked.\u00a0 As you get points you will earn 1-ups, and there is no maximum.\u00a0 Your life count is displayed as a row of ship images instead of a number, though, so once you get past about eight lives in reserve you won’t know exactly how many you have.\u00a0 It’s enough, though, to know that once you know how many lives you have left things are starting to go wrong… heh.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Graphics in General<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest 2000’s graphics are exceptional, and are one of the many reasons why I love this game so, so much.\u00a0 The visualizer-style backgrounds are incredible, first.\u00a0 And somehow, T2K has some of the best-looking graphics ever.\u00a0 Even though the game is running at 320×240 regular graphics, not the ultra-sharp lines of the originals’ arcade vector graphics display on its special vector monitor, it looks exceptionally sharp. I don’t know what wizardry was done here but somehow T2K’s lines look straight and not jaggy.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course the game is made of pixels, and some of them are noticeable square ones, but they are used perfectly — the moving square pixels that form the background’s laser-light-visualizer style show are the exact right thing to use for that job.\u00a0 Minter would go on to use a similar look for the visuals for his VLM, or light synthesizer, for the Atari Jaguar CD, and my opinion is that that is the best-looking visualizer ever.\u00a0 And that’s not said because of nostalgia, I did not have a Jaguar or Jag CD in the ’90s. It just looks incredible, better overall than more powerful visualizers do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tempest 2000 is similar; sure, newer games, including some from Minter himself such as Tempest 4000 for modern consoles, look ‘better’ than this game and run more smoothly, but T2K’s overall visual style just cannot be beat.\u00a0 The enemy sprites, the web, the creepy fear this game instills on the player, it’s all nearly perfect.\u00a0 So, the sharp, clear graphics look unbelievably good.\u00a0 The game does have problems with dropping frames or slowdown when the screen gets full of enemies, I will admit, and I have died because of this for sure, but despite that I do think T2K is one of the most amazing looking games ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything works together to make the game both look and play great.\u00a0 The stage layouts are each interestingly different, giving you something new to look at and changing the gameplay; the enemies are varied and stand out and all look nice and are each immediately recognizable even when the game becomes more cluttered with foes because of their distinct designs and colors; and the sound effects of the enemies and your shots fit perfectly with the visuals.\u00a0 Jeff Minter definitely likes that early ’80s pixel art slash vector graphics look, so Tempest was a perfect game for him to remake, and he did a fantastic job of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, despite the occasional slowdown, as I mentioned I think that T2K has some of the best graphics ever.\u00a0 While playing T2K I often think, is this the best looking game ever?\u00a0 The look of this game is just exceptional, every element is done fantastically.\u00a0 When output via RGB, in my case via a Jag to SNES adapter that I use my SNES component cable with, connecting to a Retrotink 4K that I have attached to my 4K TV, T2K is so amazingly great looking that it is kind of hard to believe that it is actually a game from 1994 and not a 4K remaster of the game on my Xbox Series X, or something.\u00a0 I do not say that to brag about my setup; honestly, most games don’t really look different enough on the Retrotink 4K to definitely justify the high expense.\u00a0 Tempest 2000 is the one game that has actually made me think that maybe it was worth the money.<\/span><\/p>\n

An Aside on the Scanlines Option<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The game has a few graphics options, too.\u00a0 Most notably, you can turn on or off an optional scanline-style effect.\u00a0 So, CRT television screens work by not drawing every line, but by drawing every other line and having the lines blend together due to the nature of the technology.\u00a0 For a long time, despite this consoles worked by drawing every line they could, progressive scan style, because that was much easier technologically.\u00a0 Of course the screen would then display the results with scanlines, so your standard 224×240 or 320×240 console would display at the TV’s effective resolution of 640×480 because of the scanlines doubling the output.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, at some point in the early ’90s developers started adding interlaced scanline output right into the consoles’ hardware, in order to increase output resolutions. By adding interlacing, you can draw 640×480 for a similar amount of graphical power required for 320×240 without interlacing.\u00a0 The first model of 3DO in Japan actually has a switch to turn on or off the scanlines; all other 3DOs are interlaced-only.\u00a0 The N64 and PS2 particularly were designed around interlaced output.\u00a0 The Jaguar, however, was not, and like a classic console displays a usually 320×240 image drawing all the lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in Tempest 2000, Jeff Minter tried to program a scanline option to increase resolution, but apparently couldn’t get it to entirely work so instead an option was added which calls itself a scanline option but in fact adds a sideways jitter effect to the screen, blurring the graphics.\u00a0 The results look alright on a CRT, but I think that on a HDTV, with an upscaler, the interlacing option makes the graphics look significantly worse, as the blurry jitter does not look great.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do think that the ‘interlacing’ mode performs a bit better, though. I am very bad at judging framerates, but I do think that while the jittering looks kind of awful interlacing reduces slowdown.\u00a0 While Tempest 2000’s graphics are exceptional and are among the best ever, it is true that things can slow down very noticeably in areas dense with enemies, particularly as you get deeper in the game.\u00a0 I noticed the framerate problems less with interlacing on, though it negatively affects the graphics so much that I cannot recommend using it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some information in this section comes from this this thread: https:\/\/forums.atariage.com\/topic\/51325-why-nothing-beyond-320×240-why-no-interlaced-screens\/<\/span><\/p>\n

The Music and Sound<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to everything else, Tempest 2000 has an exceptional soundtrack as well. With an intense euro-style techno score, Tempest 2000 has what is easily one of my favorite game soundtracks ever.\u00a0 I do like the music CD version of the songs maybe slightly better than the versions on the actual cart, but the music on the cart is shockingly great!\u00a0 This may be music on a cartridge but it’s some of the best cart chiptunes I’ve ever heard, and it has great variety and dynamism too, as the music changes depending on which level you are on and what’s going on.\u00a0 There are even vocals in some songs.\u00a0 On that note, there are also a lot of vocal sound effects in this game too.\u00a0 Quite unlike your usual budget bargain-basement Atari Jaguar game, and that’s how most exclusives on this console feel, Tempest 2000 feels like a top-flight production for its time, and the audio is very much a part of that.\u00a0 Every song is just so fantastic! I love techno music and game soundtracks and this is one of the best ever at both.<\/span><\/p>\n

Strategy<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I would say that I am decent at T2K. I’m not amazing at it, but I’m not bad either. My best score is a bit over a million points, which I think is an above average score.\u00a0 I will admit that my best score on real hardware is a bit lower than on emulator, because in emulator it runs fully smoothly, but despite this I have more fun playing on real hardware so that is what I play now.\u00a0 My best on real hardware is about 650,000; decent, but I know I can do better.\u00a0 So what is the best way to play this game? It’s best to keep moving and focus on getting rid of the most dangerous foes.\u00a0 Always make sure to get out of lanes that are about to electrify, kill those large enemies, and try to keep the web clear if possible and focus on timing your shots correctly to take out enemies on top of the web before they get you if you can’t do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s fun to just hold left or right and fire and shoot stuff, but this won’t get you very far once you get past the first set of levels.\u00a0 You need to pay attention and move carefully, though you don’t want to just stay in one place either, that will lead to a quick death.\u00a0 Balancing this can be difficult given how fast-paced the game is, but quickly scanning the bottom of the web for what foes are coming at you while also avoiding whatever is on top is vital for survival. T2K is the perfect game to get ‘in the zone’ with.\u00a0 Focus, move to defeat the most important threat at each moment, and stay in the zone, staring at the monster-filled abyss in front of you.\u00a0 Yeah, again, there’s something about Tempest that is disturbing to look at, but there is also beauty to it.\u00a0 Hours feel like minutes when you’re in the zone in Tempest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What more is there to say? Well, I didn’t mention the multiplayer mode, but honestly I’ve never played it.\u00a0 It’s just a two player versus mode though so it’s definitely not the main attraction.\u00a0 Beyond that though, Tempest 2000 for Atari Jaguar is the greatest shooting game ever made.\u00a0 One of gamings’ great masterpieces, T2K is unmatched in its field.\u00a0 The stunning visuals, the sense of tension this game evokes, the feeling of getting into the zone, the amazing soundtrack, the pretty much flawless controls, the interesting and varied level webs you will face, the varied enemies and how as you proceed new foes are added at just the right moments, everything here is peak.\u00a0 Tempest 2000 is an A+ classic and is flat-out one of the best games ever made.\u00a0 This is a top 5 all time console game without question and the only non-Nintendo game that high on my best console games list.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that’s my review.\u00a0 I think I spent too much time saying ‘this game is great’ and not enough saying why, maybe I will continue working on improving this.\u00a0 But that’s it for now.\u00a0 Also please correct me if I got any facts wrong, which I may have.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided to try to review some of my favorite games.\u00a0 I’m starting with the classic console game I have played the most this year so far, and one of the all-time best. Title: Tempest 2000 Platform: Atari Jaguar Release … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444,5,117,8],"tags":[89,446,558,559,279,97],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atari-jaguar","category-classicgames","category-full-reviews","category-reviews","tag-atari","tag-atari-jaguar","tag-jeff-minter","tag-llamasoft","tag-my-favorite-games","tag-reviews-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackfalcongames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}