Tempest 4000

Tempest 4000 is an arcade game representing tunnel shoot 'em up genre. Among its developers was Jeff Minter who in 1994 created the remake of the original Tempest (Tempest 2000) from arcades that was released on Atari Jaguar. After legal problems between Atari and Llamsoft, founded by Minter, both sides decided to bury the hatchet and they decided to develop another game from this series together.

Mechanics

The gameplay is similar to the previous entries – we control a claw-shaped space ship that moves in a tunnel that looks like a spider web. We must quickly eliminate enemies that appear in front of us, collect new weapons and power-ups, avoid enemy bullets and increase our points to get a highest score. If we are good, we can quickly move to new levels that introduce different "spider webs", more challenging enemies and gradually speed up the gameplay. The game ends when we lose all lives so we must be careful – lack of attention can result in death in a spectacular explosion.

Game modes

Tempest 4000 offers a few game modes. Standard mode offers us a challenge with an increasing difficulty on more than 100 levels. This mode also offers us a chance to start the game from the point where we lost all our lives. In Pure mode we have to start from the very beginning after we lose all lives and the hardest of them all – Endurance – gives us no additional lives and bonus rounds.

Technical aspects

Although the game is faithful to the gameplay mechanics from the previous games, it uses the newest technologies. Again, the developers decided to use graphics that look like old vector technologies and a psychedelically colorful pallet. We can play the game in 4K resolution; it also uses particle effects. The soundtrack, inspired by techno music from 1990s', was created in modern bitrates.

Misc.

The game was officially announced during gamescom 2017.

Last updated on 24 February 2022