Shooter love
 

I have heard the following, but would like more details. Can anyone help?

Also, did anyone ever play Tempest 2000?

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Lionhead Studios and Jeff Minter announce that they are working together on a kaleidoscopic shooter for the GameCube.


"Jeff Minter is one of the people that inspired me to get into the industry," said Peter Molyneux of Lionhead. "I queued along with everyone else in the '80s to get his autograph and even considered getting a llama! To be working with one of the founding figures of this industry is a huge honor, I am sure we'll be producing a game that is amazing and unique."

"I am very happy indeed finally to be able to talk about this excellent collaboration between Llamasoft and Lionhead which will allow me to work on what is basically my dream project," Minter responded. "The chance to undertake this work with the backing of one of the best and most respected development houses in the world, and with the guidance of some of the finest and most creative minds in the business, is perhaps the greatest opportunity..."

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ior i played tempest 2000 extensively on the atari jaguar. one of the simplest, most fun shooters ive ever played. every time i think about that game, the first thing that pops into my head is the computer saying "Super Zapper Recharge!" i was thinkin about making that my title awhile ago.

I've been following this game for a while. I'm a big fan of Minter.

Check out this thread for some news and movies.

Thanks much!

Jeff Minter is pure gold.

I have been playing llamatron for the amiga recently, so so good.

I have played Tempest 2000 and Tempest X, both. I want to get a NUON thing to play tempest 3000 but as I don't own a TV and NUON is out of production and... :(

I will be buying Unity despite not owning a gamecube.

Ah, I remember they previewed Unity in Edge a few months ago. Making the obligatory comparisons to Tempest 2k and Rez, IIRC.

--Jason

Re: Shooter love
 

Yep. Bu the real kicker is that I don't have a Jaguar or Windoze machines. I actually have Tempest 2000 :eek: ON MACINTOSH! :eek: Yes, even Macs get commercially released games, and I like it.

Yes, there was big ol' Jeff Minter piece in an older issue of Edge - the psychedelic shooter, called Unity, even garnered the cover. There's an interview with Minter as well.

I'm up to posting the good excerpts of the piece if anybody's interested or letting folks come over and read it, if they're in the SFBA. :)

FWIW, I've heard from someone who saw Tempest 3000 debuted on the Nuon at E3 that it was basically Tempest 2000 with some very minor upgrades and that they couldn't really see why you'd want both.

Those movies are boss. Cripes, set to Underworld and everything.

http://www.olpin.net/llama/we08a.jpg

Jeff Minter, you magnificent bastard.

[X] Strongly interested.

Also, anyone up for some multiplayer Llamatron? 16-bit styleee.

I'd be up for some more Winning Eleven, and fouling people to death. :D

Of course, if you don't want to be on my team again, k8to, I'll understand. :p

Yeah Thom, please hook me up with some excerpts!

I watched those movies. Sign me up for wanting to see some excerpts too Thom!

And is that music the in-game music? Well, whatever, I'm already sold on it.

Excerpts:

There's little doubt that Unity will look like no other videogame. The closest point of reference is Rez, but Minter winces at this suggestion. "The game mechanic in Rez was always the same," he says, putting down his controller and getting into more serious mode. "It was Panzer Dragoon with its trance trousers on, wasn't it? There wasn't that much variety in the actual gameplay. The graphics were quite nice, but they were very self-conciously 'Tron'. It was like they'd imagined an abstract space that was like 'Tron', whereas the abstract spaces in Unity will see me jamming with the hardware and coming up with stuff. I want to have modern abstract as opposed to retro abstract, which I think Rez was.

"And there'll be more variety in the gameplay. I want to extend the idea which I began with Tempest of having the bonus rounds where you have a contrast between the very hectic shoot 'em up rounds and the levels where you're just travelling through space scoring points. The actual style of gameplay will change according to which environment you find yourself in. So you may find yourself in a space where you're zooming down a tube and shooting things much like Tempest; you may find yourself in a space where you're in an arena and you're swivelling around and the camera's sort of zooming about and enemies are firing on you from all sides and it's like Llamatron on acid. So there'll be various different styles of gameplay within the thing which you'll discover as you play through the game."

...

Minter joins in on a second joypad (the software actually supports up to four users, each controlling separate visual elements) and begins to manipulate another graphical layer. He's back in dreamy mode now.

...

"It arose when I'd just finished Tempest 2000 and one of the guys at Atari came outside to me when I was having a fag break (ED: 'Fags' are cigarettes to the English, FYI) and he said that he'd been playing it and it was like a combination of going to a concert and seeing a fantastic lightshow and playing a game at the same time. And of course I've had these two sides to my work over the years, which has been obviously shoot 'em up games - I've done lots of those - and light synths, which have been going on since 1984, when I did Psychedelia. So the idea for this is to bring both of those things together, to create a beautiful abstract shoot 'em up game. Tempest is a beautiful game, but you can go a lot further, you can actually start to bring in light synthesizer effects which go on while you're playing, so effectively you have a game which is a light synth and a light synth which is a game."

*****

The article also notes that the planned development cycle was October to October - this has probably been extended, but I can't see it slipping too far, so it seems reasonable to expect the title at least by the start of next year.

That took a bit of time to type out, so I think I'll hold off posting further excerpts for now, but if anybody wants to know about other stuff that might be in the article, ask away - or come over and read it yo'self!

Thanks Thom!