| Tempest (game) |
Article Index for Tempest |
Website Links For Tempest |
Information AboutTempest (game) |
''Tempest'' is an Arcade Game by Atari , originally designed and programmed by David Theurer . Released in 1980 , it was fairly popular and had several ports and sequels. The game is also notable for being the first video game with a selectable level of difficulty, in this case determined by the initial starting level. The game is a Tube Shooter , a type of Shoot 'em Up where the environment is fixed, but is shown from a pseudo three-dimensional perspective. GAMEPLAY In each of the first sixteen stages of the game, the player controls the back-and-forth motion of a yellow Claw -shaped Spaceship at the near end of a geometrically simplified wireframe tunnel or field. This play area is entirely constructed of deep blue straight line segments, creating a striking illusion of depth. These tunnels (or fields) have sixteen shapes which will appear in repeating sequence: some loop onto each other and close (hence the effect of a tunnel), while others do not (field). Not surprisingly, the first stage is a simple closed oval shape. In each stage, the player is perched at the near end of the tunnel/field (on its circumference, as it were, in the case of a closed shape) while enemies (represented initially by red dots) gather at the far end of the tunnel. They will, in groups, then attach onto the "surfaces" of the tunnel, revealing their "species", and begin heading toward the player. The player has two ways to get rid of these meanies and advance to the next level: the ordinary gun, which can produce a limited stream of bullets, and another weapon called the Superzapper. This "smart bomb" can only be used twice per level (but is recharged automatically upon advancing): the first firing destroys all enemies which have already entered the tunnel, while the second destroys a random enemy, usually the one closest to the player. As is usual for this type of game, a limited number of player's bullets may be in play at any moment. Hence, the player must develop strategies for optimizing his/her firepower. Additionally, if the Superzapper is not fired until the last of the enemies has entered the tunnel, using this weapon will immediately destroy all oppostion, and the player will advance. The animation for this process of advancement is one of the highlights of the Tempest experience and is best experienced directly. Tempest's menagerie of meanies is varied and highly sophisticated. It consists of the following:
All Tempest's troublemakers shoot at the player while progessing forward, but these shots are destroyed by return fire. TRIVIA ''Tempest'' 's design sported three main innovations for the time: # Color Vector Graphics . # Progressive Level Design - Arcade shooter games of the time typically consisted of just one level, repeated over and over with an increasingly difficult challenge. ''Tempest'' consisted of 16 levels comprised of different shapes and enemies, which, once completed, would be repeated in a different colour and in more difficult form. # The Continue - ''Tempest'' was the first to allow players to resume playing on a higher initial level once they had lost all their lives, instead of having to start from the beginning again, a feature that has become standard in later arcade games. The game makes a cameo at the end of Rush 's video for the song ''Subdivisions''. The game was initially meant to be a 3D remake of '' Space Invaders '', but such early versions had many problems, so a new design was used. Theurer says that the design came from a Dream where monsters crawled out of a hole in the ground. It is #10 on the KLOV 's list of most popular games, tied with '' Centipede ''. There were a total of three different cabinets used for this game. The most common is a standard upright-style cabinet with colorful side art in the basic shape of a triangle over a rectangle. A less flashy and more traditionally-shaped cabaret-style cabinet with no side art and a cocktail-style table cabinet were also released. The cabaret cabinet can be seen in the movie "Night of the Comet." Tempest monitor failures are common, but the monitor can be repaired and made significantly more reliable by rebuilding it with a "get-well" kit and replacing the low-voltage section with a retrofit called "LV2000." This kit is available from aftermarket arcade resellers such as www.arcadeshop.com. For complete monitor troubleshooting and repair, check out the Wells Gardner 6100 FAQ . PORTS AND SEQUELS An official port has been released for the Atari ST . Prototype s exist for the Atari 2600 and 5200 . There was an edit of the original arcade game called ''Tempest Tubes'', which changes the levels to make them harder. A PC port of the game was released for Microsoft Windows 3.x as part of the '' Microsoft Arcade '' package. The game had two sequels, '' Tempest 2000 '', for Atari Jaguar , Sega Saturn , MS-DOS , Apple Macintosh , and Sony Playstation (the latter under the name ''Tempest X3''). And '' Tempest 3000 '' for Nuon enhanced DVD players. |
Image:JAG Tempest 2000png
| "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/encyclopedia/entry/Tempest_2000" class="copylinks">Tempest 2000 on Atari Jaguar |
|
|
|