Tempest

Prototype ROM
Unreleased
Released by the Classic Gaming Expo Website. Owner and dumper unknown.

Heh.  I'll start off this page by saying I highly appreciate the Classic Gaming Expo people, as well as the owner of this cart allowing it to be dumped and released to the public so we can all see it.

That being said, let us begin looking at this absolut horror of a game Atari thankfully never unleashed onto this world.

From the information I've seen around, it's estimated that this game was approxamately 20% - 25% complete when Atari canned this abortion of a game.  Lets face it, there is no was in hell that the Atari VCS could handle this fast-paced, 3d, vector graphic game.  There were some very poor arcade ports on the 2600, however, if this was released, it would have been a disaster - probably as bad as Pac Man.

However, it's the new millenium now, the game was never released, now the prototype ROM is available for us all to laugh at!
I suppose the game bears a passing resemblance to Tempest...  in a wierd kind of drug-induced way.  Hey, at least the main character looks like his arcade counterpart!  The enemies pop up from the top of the ... um.... board and streak toward your character - who can only fire bullets at certain spots on the board that do not seem to relate to where he is.  There's no Super Zapper, but then again, on the 1-buttoned Atari 2600 joystick, how would you fire it anyway?

I think the people that made Cheetahmen 2 for the NES must own this game - because the same theory of ending a level is the same here as in their games - the level just sort of ends at a non-descript point, not having anything to do with the onscreen enemies or how many you kill.

Check out the prototype label.
This is one of those games that was probably left best uncovered.  I mean, look at the board - it looks like women's panties for gods sake!  I could just see the ripoff games if this abortion had been released - "From the creators of Custer's Revenge and Beat Em and Eat Em... CRAB CRISIS!!!  Help your woman out with her little problem and SCORE!"

Looking at this more... did Atari BUY this from one of those porno game makers or something...

Try it out, it'll at least give you a good laugh from its unplayability.

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