Tempest on XBLA this wednesday!

[IronMongeR]

Tempest

 

400 points

 

Sales of this will probably be good, I'll be buying it for sure!

Edited December 17, 2007 by IronMongeR

[cimerians]

Nope not me. Not until Microsoft can provide me or hire someone to make us a paddle controller to play these games with.

[Lord Helmet]

I think it could work really well with the analog thumbstick as long as moving the stick around in 360 degrees is mirrored on screen. If its just a left/right thing then it will really suck.

[moycon]

I'll admit a game like this benefits greatly from a spinner knob. I'll give it a try with the sticks, but don't have high hopes.

[Albert]

I can play Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar using a D-pad, so I think Tempest on the 360 will be okay. Not as good as a rotary controller, of course.

 

..Al

[moycon]

I can play Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar using a D-pad, so I think Tempest on the 360 will be okay. Not as good as a rotary controller, of course.

 

..Al

 

See that's why I don't have high hopes. I remember playing the Jag version, and while it was a good update, the D-Pad kinda ruined the experience. It was playable for sure, but just wasn't the same. Kinda like when you play Star Wars the arcade game on anything but the original hardware with that kick ass controller. It loses something when the controller is gone.

[Zeptari1]

Tempest

 

400 points

 

Sales of this will probably be good, I'll be buying it for sure!

 

 

i hope it's better then Asteroids that came out a couple weeks ago.

 

I loved asteroids when i was a kid... but for some reason the updated graphics in this one

seemed off.... i wish the people that did Geometry Wars worked on it.

 

Did the same team that did the asteroids version do the tempest one too? I hope not...

 

the explosions seem to get in the way.. knda like space giraffe.

 

if ya know what i men..

 

-rick

 

I wish they'd update the graphics but not over do it....

 

a clean update like frogger...

[telengard]

I can play Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar using a D-pad, so I think Tempest on the 360 will be okay. Not as good as a rotary controller, of course.

 

..Al

 

See that's why I don't have high hopes. I remember playing the Jag version, and while it was a good update, the D-Pad kinda ruined the experience. It was playable for sure, but just wasn't the same. Kinda like when you play Star Wars the arcade game on anything but the original hardware with that kick ass controller. It loses something when the controller is gone.

 

I wonder if that that Mad Catz "classic" controller with the spinner would be good for this?

 

I hope this doesn't do too well, else Jeff Minter might get upset.

 

~telengard

[+Cobra Kai]

I was thinking the same thing, will Jeff Minter get mad when this outsells SG? Stay tuned for the drama.

[+HammR25]

That Mad Catz controllers sounds like garbage.

 

http://www.retroblast.com/Hardware/RetroBl...E-GameSTICK.php

[Hyper_Eye]

This will outsell SG and I think it will piss poor old Minter off. But he has promised to keep video game development related stuff off of his blog (yeah... like he is really going to stick to that.) Be ready for more crying.

 

After many years of playing T2K on the Jag I have finally acquired a nice rotary controller and it has changed the game experience for me. I will give this version a shot but, having T2K with a rotary, I don't know if this will be able to compare. I might buy it anyway just to contribute to making Jeff Minter cry. I was a fan of his but his arrogance has changed my mind for me.

[Atari5200]

too bad my controller stopped working, let my son play with it, guess he drooled on it or something thinking he couldn't hurt it and now it's dead.

 

oh well, to everybody who won't buy this because of a rotary controller, get over it. Tempest 2000 was perfectly fine on the Jag AND Saturn with their respective controllers, fuck, even Microsoft arcade version of Tempest works great using a keyboard.

[cimerians]

I can play Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar using a D-pad, so I think Tempest on the 360 will be okay. Not as good as a rotary controller, of course.

 

..Al

 

See that's why I don't have high hopes. I remember playing the Jag version, and while it was a good update, the D-Pad kinda ruined the experience. It was playable for sure, but just wasn't the same. Kinda like when you play Star Wars the arcade game on anything but the original hardware with that kick ass controller. It loses something when the controller is gone.

 

 

Your sooo right about the Star Wars game. Anything but the real arcade controls are just horrible.

 

I also agree with the Xbox live Asteroids comments. The extreme explosions\graphics get in the way and are just plain annoying. Although I did like the version of Missile Command on XBoxlive.

 

All I ever wish for is a simple low priced USB paddle so we can play these games. Whats so damn hard about this? I fully beleive it would sell so I'm bewildered why anyone hasnt done one yet.

[Lord Helmet]

Your sooo right about the Star Wars game. Anything but the real arcade controls are just horrible.

 

 

I find that Star Wars played pretty well in MAME with a mouse

[Gregory DG]

So is this Tempest 4000 or what? (Or Tempest 3600, har har.)

[cimerians]

Your sooo right about the Star Wars game. Anything but the real arcade controls are just horrible.

 

 

I find that Star Wars played pretty well in MAME with a mouse

 

 

Oops....yes forgot about that.

 

[Math You]

They've done a great job with the graphics. Excellent

 

BTW Can games downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade be saved onto a memory card or cd-rom, or do they have to stay on the hard drive?

Edited December 19, 2007 by Math You

[Atari5200]

not cd, but can be with memory card, won't get very many on there though.

[Gabriel]

Unsurprisingly, Team X Box didn't like it.

 

http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1449/Tempest/p1/

 

They gave it a 3 out of 10.

[Gregory DG]

Unsurprisingly, Team X Box didn't like it.

 

Yeah, and the review is inaccurate too. Especially coming from a self-professed classic gamer:

 

the game was Atari’s first attempt at using vector-based wireframe models to simulate 3D action.

 

Hmm... I'm pretty sure Battlezone predates Tempest. (That should have been easy to figure out considering that BZ is monochrome and Tempest is color.)

[joeybastard]

the game was Atari’s first attempt at using vector-based wireframe models to simulate 3D action.

 

Hmm... I'm pretty sure Battlezone predates Tempest. (That should have been easy to figure out considering that BZ is monochrome and Tempest is color.)

 

I think Red Baron probably came out before Tempest as well.

[moycon]

I think Red Baron probably came out before Tempest as well.

 

That's immediately what popped into my mind as well. God we are geeks.

[Gabriel]

Last night I pondered on whether I should buy this or not. I even rolled out the PS2 Atari Anthology to do some comparison.

 

When comparing the 360 Classic version to the Atari Anthology version, two things immediately became apparrent. Firstly, the sound on the 360 Classic version is ass. Secondly, the graphics are not as clear. Vertical lines are especially prone to disappearing on the 360 Classic version, and the high score table is unreadable. There were also issues with parts of the web going off-screen since the 360 classic version crunches the display area down to 3:4 while the webs are still designed for widescreen. The 360 Classic version was also a lot harder than the Tempest on the Atari Anthology collection.

 

Then I compared the Evolved version to the 360 Classic and Atari Anthology versions. In the Evolved version, it was much easier to slide past the flippers, and the shooter's rate of fire seemed faster. The sound was much improved over the 360 Classic version, but it was still debatable whether it compared well with the Atari Anthology version. The difficulty seemed much more reasonable in the Evolved version and the Atari Anthology versions. As for visuals, the Evolved version definitely had more flair, but there was something to be said for the simplicity of the original.

 

The Evolved version seems to play a lot more like Tempest 2000, but without the powerups. I found myself having to change strategies depending on whether I was playing Evolved or Classic. It's a very subtle difference, but I swear it's there.

 

The main problems I had with the 360 demo were in the area of control and being able to see what I was doing. Of these, the control problem was much more severe. I had definite problems getting my shooter to end up in the lane I wanted. The sighting problems were mainly localized to the Evolved mode, but they weren't all that bad. I just kind of put myself in 2000 mode and went with my shooting instincts. I don't know if that would work in the long run, though.

 

Another problem I had in Evolved mode was that I kept on mistaking the Tankers coming up the web for Tempest 2000 powerups, and I would instinctually run into them. They were just colored blurs (because of their movement) which looked a lot like the powerups from the Jaguar game, and I've been conditioned to collect them. I guess I must unlearn what I have learned.

 

I ended up playing the Atari Anthology version more than I ever had before. The shortness of the 360 demo didn't give me enough of an impression to buy, so I just made due with what I had which didn't end automatically after two levels.

[Lord Helmet]

Surprisingly, I enjoyed XBLA Tempest, at least on Evolved mode. I bought the full version.

The classic mode sucks pretty bad though.

 

I plan on writing up a full review after a day or so of playing it.

[rxd]

The thing that infuriates me with these Atari remakes on the 360 is the unbelievably bad sound. Give me a break. I know they're only $5.00 but come on, at least put some effort into getting the sound right. Another missed sale with me Atari. If this crap is what they're going to release they might as well go out of business imo...