Tempest X3 - The Definitive Review

I finally got ahold of this game this morning, and I've just taken it up
to a million odd and have seen enough of the game that I feel qualified
to offer comment.

The game is basically Tempest 2000 with extra PlayStation-oriented
graphics effects, plus a few extra enemies (that I've seen so far, I'm
at level 47) and some subtractions, which I will get to later.  The Webs
are rendered with translucent, warping textures in the panels instead of
the Gouraud shading of the original, and shots fired down the Web light
up the textures in a most pleasing manner.  The whole game scene is
rendered in a persistance/blur field, which is cranked up at certain
times (such as firing your Superzapper) and which makes everything go a
bit psychedelic, which is what we would expect in any game based on T2K
:-).  There is also a mild plasma around the edges of the screen that is
subtle but tasty.

The pixel-shatter explosions and effects in the original have largely
been replaced by polygon-based effects, which, combined with the
aforementioned blur field, look very nice indeed, and when the going
gets hectic and lots of things are blowing up (as they should be in any
good game) the display becomes agreeably trippy.  The "2000" and
"Excellent" messages are now rendered in a translucent plain font -
which looks OK, but I think I still prefer the shattering originals.

The Webs themselves are a variety of different shapes, typically less
angular than the T2K webs - and there are more of them.  Whilst having
more webs is nice, I think that on the whole the web shapes are a bit
tamer than in T2K - I would have liked to have seen more of the
folding-onto-themselves type that were such bastards in T2K.  So far I
haven't come across any "hate webs" - in T2K every now and again you'd
come across a web that was *such* a bastard, you'd always say to
yourself, "God, I *hate* this bloody web!" and it'd often be a sticking
point, and you'd get a most excellent feeling of relief when you got by
the sucker.  I kinda miss the hate webs.  Mind you, maybe I'll discover
some above level 47 :-)

The audio is of course improved from the original T2K, being as the
choons are now delivered from the CD-ROM, allowing the use of the
upgraded versions that were on the T2K audio CD.  Those tunes still kick
ass!  Can't beat a nice drop o' techno for a game like this.  Some of
the audio FX have been changed, and by and large the new FX are good -
nice solid meaty samples.  The only noise I don't like too much is the
noise that the Pulsars make - I reckon it should be much more deep and
threatening ;-)

Okay, on to the gameplay.  Now, I am going to make some criticisms here,
but don't get me wrong, I think they've done an excellent job on TX3 and
I like it a lot, and indeed I rate it as one of my 3 fave PS games
(Wipeout XL and Robotron X being the other 2).  I'm bound to be a little
hypercritical of some things, because this *is* more or less my game
with some embellishments and changes, and hey, you gotta love your own
:-).

Your claw looks a bit nicer IMO than the one in T2K, and moves nice and
responsively just like it should.  The lasers are now more colourful
polygon objects - the Particle Laser in particular is a lot
beefier-looking than in T2K.  The basic gameplay is exactly as in T2K -
blast enemies coming up the Web, collect powerups to get points,
goodies, and access to one of the three Bonus Rounds.

The powerups come in the usual T2K sequence, starting with the Particle
Laser.  There is one extra powerup beyond the Warp Token - something
called a Super AI Droid.  And speaking of the AI Droid, at this point I
am going to have my first moan.

They've lobotomised the AI Droid!  The poor thing has no "I"!  Instead
of targeting enemies on the Web, the poor enfeebled thing just follows
you around and hovers over your ship with no autonomy of its own!  This
ruins one of my favourite strategies in T2K - when you got the Droid and
knew how it behaved, you could more or less leave it alone to handle one
part of the Web while you concentrated on defending another part.  It
was a great comfort to know it was there looking after your ass.  Now,
you have to lead it by the nose everywhere you go - which makes it
perfectly useless in one of the situations where the old Droid used to
be so useful - if you are trapped in a corner with enemies at the top of
the Web and you don't have Jump Enabled yet.  The old Droid would pick
the enemies off the Web rim for you and hopefully buy you the space and
time to get ahold of that Jump powerup.  The new Droid just sits and
wibbles over your head, and the baddies march in and get you!

I think he may get some of his brain back if you get the Super AI Droid
powerup, but by then you're usually near the end of the wave anyway, and
don't really have time to feel the benefit before you're done on that
Web.  As it is, I miss having a smart Droid terribly, and it's taken the
fun out of "Yes, Yes, Yes!" powerups.  I'd rather have my Particle Laser
straight away than that useless droid.  I'm sorry, guys, but minus
points for an AI droid that isn't I. :-/

The usual crop of enemies are there and on the whole behave as they
should.  The Demon Head has been replaced by a similar enemy that fires
a blue thing at you when shot - I actually preferred the look of the
Demon Head though, but that's a minor quibble and largely a matter of
personal taste.  There's another enemy that looks a bit like a
delta-wing aircraft that takes several shots to kill.  Fuseballs are now
rendered as squiggly kinda white things - I would have liked to have
seen each arm of the squiggle be a different colour, like in the
original, but again, that's a matter of taste.  However, and I'm going
to have another bit of a rant - 

They've emasculated Pulsars!  In T2K, when a Pulsar reaches the lip of
the Web, it splits in two and the pieces hurtle around the lip - a real
sphincter-tightening occurrence if you had Jump, and certain death if
you did not!  The X3 Pulsars just behave like Flippers when they reach
the top (which is what happened in original Tempest, but which is a bit
boring).  A Pulsar or Pulsar Tanker nearing the top in T2K used to be a
source of ABJECT TERROR for the player, and dealing with them early was
a major impetus to the gameplay.  Now, they are not to be feared at all,
so long as you don't get caught in the lane when they pulse.  I *miss*
that terror, and I get a little nostalgic twinge whenever I see a Pulsar
getting near the top and I don't get scared at all.  I don't really hate
Pulsars like I used to, and I think that's a shame.

Another difference in the gameplay is in the behaviour of the Particle
Laser and Spikes.  In 2K, the Particle Laser makes very short work
indeed of Spikes, eroding them almost instantly.  In X3, it has no
discernable increase in efficiency over the standard laser when shooting
Spikes.  This means that Pulsars over a spiked lane become a lot more
dangerous.  Now, I can see that maybe they wanted to deliberately make
Spikes more of a bother in X3 - fair enough.  But it's a big flaw that
the same thing now happens in 2000 Mode - the Particle Laser does not
kill Spikes like it should.  I sincerely hope that they haven't made the
same mistake in the other versions of the game for the Saturn and
Windows, because those are being sold as straight T2K, and the fact that
the Particle Laser doesn't nail Spikes properly alters the balance of
the gameplay considerably.  (This is the reason I *wish* that they had
shown me the conversions prior to release - I could have trapped silly
errors like this).

The Bonus Rounds are as in T2K, although I find them a bit more
difficult (I think the tail in the Particle Tube sequence disappears
waaaay too fast when you're off the track, and it also doesn't look
quite right - it should taper more).  One oddity is that in Bonus Round
One, the Jupiter texmap sequence, the background starfield is for some
reason drawn on *top* of the texmap instead of behind it, which looks a
little strange.  The feedback effects in Bonus Round Three (and, indeed,
throughout the game) are a lot faster and smoother than on the Jag - but
I found the rings a bit harder to see in BR3 than they were on the Jag.

Overall, though, despite these cavils, the gameplay rocks along at a
blinding pace just as it ever did, and it's even more spectacular than
before, and benefits from having less slowdown when there are a lot of
enemies onscreen than the poor old Jaggi did.  Anyone who is familiar
with T2K will settle right in and score a good half-mill first time
out.  Those who missed out on the joys of Jaguar ownership  and
missed T2K can now find out what all the fuss was about and enjoy some
nice extra eye- and ear-candy into the bargain.  As I said before, TX3
now ranks in my top 3 PS games ever, and if you want one of the hottest,
most intense blasting games out there, nip out straight away and score a
copy.  As ever, best played in a dark room with the stereo cranked
whilst under the influence of the stimulant of your choice.

Other, minor things that bugged me:

 - They took out my rotating yak-head and replaced it with boring
corporate logos!  Boo!  Hiss! 

- They took out my yak-head Web!  Waaaa!

- 2K mode should not have been hidden.  And the code for accessing it -
I could have understood some bovine or ungulate reference, but "yiff!"? 
That sounds like a dog with a cold doing a wet sneeze!  Wassap with
that??

Only minor silly things really.  The only things that really annoy me
are the new uselessness of the AI Droid, the less-than-terrifying
Pulsars and especially the Particle Laser not shooting Spikes properly
in 2K mode - that one was a big "oops".

As I hope you can tell, I actually like the game a lot, and I hope I
haven't appeared overcritical.  I do think that I have isolated some of
the reasons why some Jag T2K diehards have been a little critical though
- it's not all just sour grapes; there are some significant differences
that alter the balance of the gameplay in a way that may not be to
everybody's taste.  I would say that that's fine, there's a 2K mode for
those that prefer it - but the particle laser/spike anomaly shifts the
balance of the gameplay in that mode too, which is definitely not how it
should be.

Moans notwithstanding, a fine variant on the Tempest/2K theme, that
looks and sounds wicked and which will have your thumb aching and your
retinas smoking :-)

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(:-) - Y a K
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