Tempest 2000
Tempest 2000 is a tube shooter video game originally developed by Llamasoft and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar in North America on 13 April, 1994. It was released in Europe on 27 June and in Japan on 15 December of the same year, with the Japanese release being published by Mumin Corporation. Part of Atari Corp.'s 2000 series, it is a remake by Jeff Minter of Dave Theurer's 1981 arcade game Tempest, which used Atari's QuadraScan vector color display technology.
| Tempest 2000 | |
|---|---|
Original Atari Jaguar cover art in all regions | |
| Developer(s) |
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| Publisher(s) |
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| Producer(s) | John Skruch |
| Designer(s) | Jeff Minter |
| Programmer(s) | Jeff Minter |
| Artist(s) | Joby Wood |
| Writer(s) | Joe Sousa |
| Composer(s) | Alastair Lindsay Ian Howe Kevin Saville |
| Series | Tempest |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Tube shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Taking control of the claw-shaped Blaster spacecraft from the original game, the player has to survive and travel across multiple levels until the end of an intergalactic war, battling against a variety of enemies that appear on the playfield. Originally an exclusive for the Jaguar, Tempest 2000 was ported to MS-DOS, Macintosh, Sega Saturn, PlayStation and Windows, each with several changes and additions from the original version.
Tempest 2000 was critically acclaimed when it was released on the Jaguar, with critics praising the graphics, gameplay and soundtrack. It has often been called one of the best games released for the Jaguar and as of 1 April 1995, the Jaguar version has sold more than 30,000 copies during its lifetime, making it one of the best-selling games for the system. Critical reception to the various ports, though still mostly positive, was more mixed than reception for the original version, owing to the aging of the game and differing opinions of the enhancements the ports offered.