Tempest 4000

It feels like a dream come true, and I can’t imagine how exciting this is for the folks at Llamasoft. Sure, it could have benefited from some more bells and whistles, but Tempest 4000 is the real deal, a new version of a remarkable arcade classic that isn’t spoken of nearly as much as it deserves today.

Tempest 4000 is a defiant artifact that returns to life once a console generation. What would it be like if someone who made games for the VIC-20 in the early 80’s authored another game in 2018? How many programmers from that generation are still even in this line of work? An answer to these curiosities may seem like a precarious way to spend $30. Thankfully, as either a psychedelic wonderland or a classic arcade score chase, Tempest 4000 is full of eccentric support.

There's only so much to add to an addicting gameplay loop of shooting, warping and surviving. Tempest 4000 does enough for fans of the original game to scratch that itch of a solid arcade classic. At certain points you enter a great flow state the games like Tetris, Rez or Lumnies are often known for. These are the best moments of Tempest 4000; enjoying the colors, the music and most importantly the solid gameplay. The game is just as good as the original and best of all it never gets old.

So far, it all sounds good and it is, but one can’t help feeling a bit disappointed that nothing was done to enhance the game. The Dave Bowman stargate analogy cries out for a VR mode. Rez recently got one. So did Tetris. A VR Tempest experience is a logical progression for the game that wouldn’t fundamentally change the core nature of the game but it sure would enhance its trippiness.

The price is no doubt Atari’s doing but it makes recommending the game a lot harder than it used to be. And yet when the bad guys are falling like skittles, as you skid past one and quickly jump back to explode him and his cohorts, any qualifications about the game being too retro, too familiar, or too expensive fall away. But it is frustrating that the game’s most important talking point has become how much it costs and not how it plays.

Tempest 4000 is a love letter to fans of the original and Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, for everyone else, the game is a fun but hard to master, arcade-style, synth-heavy romp.

Jeff Minter's latest interpretation of this arcade classic still holds up as one of the best versions of Tempest to date, although the price and lack of changes from TxK both make it a difficult purchase to recommend at $30.

Fans of Tempest are sure to enjoy this latest installment in the long-running series. I definitely did. That being said, it doesn't quite feel like the next evolution of the classic formula. Here's hoping Tempest 5000 offers a more innovative take on the franchise.

The least revolutionary variant of Tempest, and arguably the first to feel less than essential. It’s a high-class psychedelic retro shooter, but no Resogun or Nex Machina.

It's quite the barebones package, despite being an uproarious amount of fun in small doses. Some small control tweaks, additional content, and other changes might make this the best Tempest out of the rest, but for now it's still a great diversion and addition to the series' portfolio.

I have spent countless hours playing TxK on Vita and it’s one of my favourite games, so I’m disappointed that Tempest 4000 doesn’t really add anything new, especially considering the higher price. It’s still a great game and hopefully a patch will tone down the overzealous use of effects. This is worth a look if you are bored of cut scenes, collectables, and other frippery that clog up video games and want some serious old school arcade action.

Tempest 4000’s time-tested gameplay still rings true, but some of the visual and design elements in this release add some unintended challenge. For what is ultimately an updated quarter-muncher, it has a steep price, but those looking to relive the past in 4K could do far worse than this title.

We want to love this update to the Tempest series but we've seen it all before and it's just not as impressive or fun as we had expected.

Look, it’s a fun game, filled with flashing lights and so much digital detritus you'll need a shower after one run. But the thing is, you’ve played this before – not in this form in 4K on this particular format, but Tempest is Tempest and Tempest 4000 doesn’t really try to be anything else. Which is fine, but we just wonder whether hidden messages to Chuck E. Cheese founder Nolan Bushnell and a few extra visualiser effects are enough here. Minter’s schtick, for as much as we love it, feels like it’s outstayed its welcome for the first real time. Maybe Atari’s lawyers would have been better off keeping this particular project locked down?