Taking control of the claw-shaped Blaster spacecraft from the original game, the player must survive and travel across multiple levels until the end of an intergalactic war, battling against a variety of enemies that appear on the playfield.

Designed by Jeff Minter, it is a remake of Dave Theurer's Tempest, which used Atari's QuadraScan vector color display technology.

Completing all 100 web levels in Tempest 2000 unlocks "Beastly Mode", which is a harder difficulty setting where enemies move faster, fire more often and are more resilient to the player's shots.

The main objective of the game is to survive and score points for as long as possible by clearing the playfield on the screen from enemies that appear at the bottom of the web.

In addition, this mode includes an exclusive Mirror power-up, which deflects shots from the rival back at him, alongside other objects to use in the playfield and regular enemies from the main game.

Though discouraged, Minter continued to work on the game until it was finished and also regarded the Jaguar hardware as easy to develop for.

[17] The original Atari Jaguar version's music was created by Ian Howe, Alastair Lindsay and Kevin Saville of Imagitec Design (a.k.a.

The game was ported to MS-DOS, Macintosh, Sega Saturn and PlayStation, the latter version with several changes to the design under the name of Tempest X3.

The Jaguar version was included as part of the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration compilation for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One, marking the game's first re-release.

The Windows version is rendered in higher resolution, and has some unique glitches, like registering bonus level scores incorrectly.

or "H_V_S" on the top highscore position activates a secret mode, allowing the user to play the original Tempest 2000 game.

[34] Any high scores made in this mode are not saved, the music (wave-captured from the original modules) is muffled and the effectiveness of the Particle Laser against spikes is not restored.

[63][64] GamePro praised the graphics and high speed, said the music included "the best techno-rave tracks anywhere", and deemed the two-player competitive mode "well worth the price of the cart.

Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot and Scary Larry of GamePro both said that it offers too few enhancements or additions over the by-then more than two years old Jaguar version.

[49][46] However, a Next Generation critic gave it a positive review, opining it retained the elements which made the Jaguar version great and that the enhancements were strong enough to make it fresh.

[51] Reviewing the Saturn version, Paul Glancey of Sega Saturn Magazine recalled the impact of the game's original release on the Jaguar: "... Jeff Minter had pepped up the gameplay with a barrage of eye-warping pixel explosions, swirling, smearing colour effects and a 'banging' ravey soundtrack.

[57] Entertainment Weekly gave the game an A− and wrote that "An update of the arcade shooting classic, Tempest 2000 is multimedia in the truest sense, with psychedelic graphics, a CD-quality soundtrack, breathy voice samples (the words superzapper recharge have never sounded more erotic), even text that scrolls past at dizzying speeds.

[71] Minter also produced the unofficial "inspired by" follow-ups Space Giraffe and TxK on the Sony PlayStation Vita.

[73][74] Also, two unofficial clones of Tempest 2000 named Typhoon 2001 and Cyclone 2000 were launched for PC and Android devices, by Thorsten Kuphaldt and NoCrew Mobile respectively.