Together Retro: Tempest

[noiseredux]

that's an awesome haul DSH. Goatstore is awesome, but they have no GB stuff nowadays.

[noiseredux]

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[joehero]

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[Hobie-wan]

So i ordered one of these: http://www.goatstore.com/Products/Atari ... uct=151420

Holy crap, $70?

I also bought this to rock out: http://www.goatstore.com/Products/Atari ... oundtrack/

Cool. I paid about $10 for mine, that's a good price.

[dsheinem]

Yeah, $70 is steep but I got Tempest for cheap way back when. Between the two I paid what I consider to be a fair price.

Homemade Jag rotary controllers sometimes go for $100 on eBay, and I have ended up paying less than $90 in total for the game + soundtrack + controller + s-video when all is said and done. Besides, my own attempt at making the controller was futile and would have meant many more hours of work to MAYBE get one that works right.

So in the end I rationalized that it was better to spend the $70 for this pre-made one instead of the ~$25 to try and do it myself with parts.

If anyone is curious, I put in a request for a rotary controller over on AtariAge and the owner of the goat store explained why he stocks this particular model. Needless to say, his description sold me:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/17 ... ontroller/

I know you asked for others, but I'll toss in my two cents about the ChaosReins rotaries. I try to be really honest with whatever it is we sell because I don't do this full time and I do it because I'm a fan of this sort of stuff, so hopefully I'm not being partial. That having been said, obviously, they are on my web site so I guess you can take it with a grain of salt...

Anyway, I LOVE the ChaosReins Rotary controllers. We carry them because they are awesome. If people didn't like them, we would have stopped making them a while ago.

The price, at $70, is kind of steep since you can use them only on one game, but if you are a fan of Tempest 2000, there is nothing better than using a rotary controller on it. I LOVE Tempest 2000 -- I rotate between naming it, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Earthbound as my favorite game of all time, and most of the time I probably go with Tempest. The game inspired us to start the GOAT Store (not kidding), the store actually got me in contact with Jeff Minter who programmed it, and our "GOAT" mascot is actually Jeff Minter's friend's goat copper, who voice acted in Tempest 3000. I've played every version of Tempest 2000 there is and beat them -- Jaguar, Saturn, PC, X3 on PS1 and 3000 on NUON, and the Jaguar is the best one without the rotary.

With a rotary, it gets even better. I am not really a fan of the arcade version for whatever reason, and I never much cared for the rotary there. But it works SO good on the Jaguar version of the game, it's ridiculous.

One thing of important note -- a lot of rotary controllers have little "clicky" type things in them. The ChaosReins rotary does not, it's totally smooth. Some people like the clicky stuff, but from arcade collecting and whatnot I've found that the clickyness is something that you get from wear and was not standard on most rotary controllers. I've tried T2K with a rotary with the clicks, and the problem that I have is that I want to equate one click with one full turn, which doesn't always match the action on the screen. The ChaosReins Rotary without the clicks solves this, and it seems totally, totally natural to play like this.

The FIRST time that I played a game of Tempest with a rotary (admittedly, not a ChaosReins - but also one that I think only a couple were made like it - bigger version in a custom case), I immediately improved my play. I literally flew through some of the later levels that I usually died on with normal controls. It sold me. When we first looked at carrying the ChaosReins rotary, I tried this one and found it even better than the other one. Truthfully, while I know that I have the other rotary somewhere (that I paid over $100 for), I use the ChaosReins controller exclusively when I play now.

There is another rotary that has recently been offered for sale by someone, I forget who, that is called the T2K Commander or something similar. It looks awesome. He does custom buttons, a custom spinner that has the claw from T2K on it. I think it looks awesome. But, he also flipped the rotary to the right hand side and made it so that the buttons for the shoot and jump were integrated into the d-pad. A unique and cool method of doing it, but to me, the rotary is more natural on the left (I think it was on the right on the arcade game though) and I also like the individual button controls, as I find especially playing in the hardcore mode (whatever it is called) being able to fire individually while also being able to jump individually gets more important. Having said all that, if I had money I'd probably get one to just because I'm stupid for Tempest stuff, but I can't imagine I would switch to it permanently.

Hope that helps! Enjoy whatever choice you make! The game is so cool with a rotary!

[CRTGAMER]

dsheinem, read your comment about Atari Age Goat Store connection. Have you heard anything about when will the 5200 Tempest cart be released?

[dsheinem]

no, but that place is a treasure trove of knowledge. i am sure you can find out. start here:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/16 ... 0-tempest/

[CRTGAMER]

Thanks, posted the question just now there too.

[Golgo 14]

I have the ChaosReins controller as well. It's good if you can swallow the price. I found a few coupon codes which took the price down by 10%, but with shipping it was back up to around $70. It's a quality controller, but I don't like having the spinner on the left side. I usually make up for that by turning the controller upside down which is an acceptable solution, though of course you have to adjust for that.

I thought about getting the Commander, but it costs more and I wasn't willing to take a $100 chance on that odd button arrangement.

[noiseredux]

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