Tempest 2000
PC CD Rom
Minimum system requirements 386DX/40mhz
DOS S.O 2MB RAM
2MB hard disk space
Single speed CD Rom drive VGA £29.99
BACK in the early 1980s, if you wanted a game with just pure non stop action Tempest was without doubt the number one. It was king of the arcades alongside other games such as Aster olds and Space Invaders, Tempest made its makers Atari synonymous with games of the highest calibre.
The original Space Invaders and Asteroids have long since disappeared, but they spawned a whole range of clones. Tempest, however, was so unique that it was almost impossible to copy. Tempest 2000 (T2000) was originally designed with the Atari Jaguar console in mind but, because of some extremely poor console sales, Atari decided to release it one other formats, starting with the PC one.
With some games requiring a Pentium 100 to run smoothly, it's refreshing to see that T2000 has reasonable expectations of your hardware. Consequently you don't get any stunning introduction sequences, digitised speech or fancy graphics. But what you do get is plenty of pulsating, nose bleedingly fast game play.
As with the original, you control a ship as it moves around the edge of a 3D tunnel which appears to taper at one end. While manoeuvring around the circumference, enemy craft hurtle towards you while unleashing their firepower basically you have to destroy them before they reach the top. On eliminating some of those enemies you will be rewarded with a variety of power ups. But they aren't handed to you on a plate. Each time one becomes available you are prompted to collect it but while in a frenzy of firing it is very easy to shoot these and thus you chance of extra firepower.
T2000 doesn't require an far fetched storyline it's as basic as they come. But it's basically brilliant.