#0016 Tempest

Alright, on to the only game on the list that someone actually requested, (By requested I mean asked “are you playing this?”) Tempest! a 1980 shoot 'em up, and the very first "tube shooter". It was developed by Atari, who seemed to be one of the only companies capable of making good arcade games back then.

An interesting fact about this game,  back in 1980, Dave Theurer was looking through Atari's big book of game ideas and found one for a first person space invaders. The idea sounded pleasing, but it was never quite good enough to make into a full fledged game. That is, until Dave Theurer had a dream about it. He dreamed that hideous monsters were trying to claw their way out of a hole in the ground, and he had to kill them before they made it to the surface. He combined his dream with his already half complete game, combining the concepts along with brand new color vector technology and voila! Tempest was born.

This game was a little tricky for me,  because, rather than a joystick that moves you around in eight directions,  you instead have a rotating nob that let's you spin around the "tube" allowing for fast and tight controls. This was tricky because when you emulate the game, that nob turns into buttons and are very finicky, and it was near impossible to move around with any real accuracy, something that's essential to the game. So, rather than put up with a crappy control scheme, I sought to play the original arcade cabinet! Luckily a local arcade just happened to have less of classic arcade games and this was one of them,  meaning that for the first time in the list I played the game on the original intended platform (excluding the computer games, and even those are played on a modern gaming computer, not a commodore 64 or Apple II).

So! In this game you play as a claw, perched at the top of a big "tube" and your job is to spin around the "tube" and kill the "monsters" before they reach the surface, dodging little balls of energy and spikes along the way. Literally the stuff of nightmares.

This game... Is probably the most fun I've had so far with this list. I mean it, I found myself having to force myself to walk away .It's really an exciting and truly addicting game! I was surprised by the features that it introduced, such as the ability to choose your difficulty, and actually let you "continue" after a game over. I honestly had a LOT of fun. The graphics are superb, using vector technology to it's maximum potential and the game has aged very well for being 34 years old. I honestly think that anyone who loves video games, especially shoot 'em ups could pick up this game and really enjoy themselves. I highly recommend this game.

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