Enlarge / This is a 2018 title screen, we swear. (credit: Atari / Llamasoft)

Ever since 1994's Tempest 2000, British game developer Jeff Minter has been inextricably linked to Atari. Published by Atari for its Jaguar system, Tempest 2000 was easily among that notorious console's best, and it combined the spirit of the original Tempest with power-ups, psychedelic designs, and twitchy, controller-friendly action (no trackball required!).
But that Atari link has grown sour in recent years, with Minter publicly decrying the current "company" (which he chidingly calls "Infogrames," since that was the company's name before it bought Atari's rights) and paraphrasing their last legal threat in 2015 as follows: "Give us personal information about your finances or we will fuck you up." The row was over TxK, the spiritual successor to Tempest 2000 that his development house, Llamasoft, launched on the PlayStation Vita in 2014. The following year, his attempts to bring that new "tube shooter" game to other platforms were met with legal threats.
"Attack me? They should have hired me," Minter said to Ars in 2015. Someone among Atari's ranks must have been paying attention.

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