Video Game Gazette
For those of you who have not played a classic game in a while, or worse yet, have never played a classic game, pick one up and give it a spin. You won’t find eye popping graphics, or engrossing story lines. However, in their place you have simple gameplay that lets you get in the flow and transcend the game.
From an abstract point of view, Tempest 2000 plays something like many other classic games such as Root Beer Tapper. There are several columns, down which enemy assault. You must shoot them before they reach you. Several factors made Tempest stand out from similar games. One of them was the speed at which the aliens attacked, and another was their shear number. Then there was of course the vector graphics.
The original Tempest was one of the first games to use vector graphics. Although vector graphics had its advantages over sprites in that it can create large shapes, and replicate perspective, it lost the first battle with sprite based games as they offered more detail and color. However, vector graphics would go on to win the war, as their true potential was realized in the polygon era.
Some updates to classic games have been less than successful, Street Fighter EX comes to mind. One reason why such games fail is that the remix does not keep the enduring qualities of the original. Tempest 2000 has no such flaws. It has all of the style and gameplay of the original. To bring the game more up to date, the designers added bling in the form of score announcements and the like. These additions complemented the original game making it even better.
