Jeff Minter to grace the Vita with a new Tempest game

Game design legend and sheep afficionado Jeff Minter has coded on most machines in existence with a steady stream of fun, intense, trippy arcade titles. That run will continue on the Vita with a new version of one of the finest games ever. Tempest 2000 was a must-own for the few Atari Jaguar owners out there, with hypnotic visuals, awesome soundtrack and a barrage of cool effects and endless play. A general update on the Llama blog lays out the details:

We are happy to announce that we have just begun work on a new game for the Playstation Vita. We’re going to base it on the essence of the original T2K. It’ll be the pure, straightforward shooter that maybe you hoped for when you first saw Space Giraffe. We’re not going to overload you with ultra psychedelia, but we will make it fluid and colourful and awesome-looking on the Vita’s delicious, vibrant OLED screen. We’re going to give you a perfect treat for your eyes, ears and thumbs with a modern extrapolation of one of the best shooters ever made on hardware that’s just perfectly suited for it, and in a way that retains the purity of the original design.

But there's nothing to show yet, so enjoy the Jaguar version in all its glory. I wonder how the Vita's widescreen will handle "tall" levels, if they're in the game, will we be able to tilt the screen up to see what's lurking at the top, or will that cause motion-queasiness issues in a game of this type? Can't wait to find out.

And if the questions keep coming up about is the Vita just an indie-hit machine, I guess we can wave Velocity Ultra and this at them while being too busy gaming to answer. I'd still like this lot to get a new lease of life on the Vita though.