"Ever trip on acid? No?...Play this game and you'll get the same effect..."

A shining point in the 32X library, you’ll find that this out of control platforming game has plenty going for it, but the game play is nothing more than your usual action jumping game. Tempo attempts to deliver a game that throws everything but the kitchen sink at you in the visuals, audio and control, while keeping the game play simple enough to pick up on. In fact, so simple that you may find yourself comparing this to the simplicity of the Super Mario Brothers without ever really thinking about it!

Once you’ve been past the visuals that the game has to offer, there is little here that sets it apart from other games in the same genre. Although the 32X is limited in its library, there is plenty here to be proud of in the sensory aspects of the game, and there is enough here that you may find yourself busy playing through the game simply because it is addicting. However, the game suffers from the over-abundance of visuals and audio, while keeping the overall game play to a minimum and simple.

The game play is nothing more than your standard run and jump platformer in which you avoid whatever is an enemy and get from one end of the stage to the next without getting killed. The problem with the game play though, is that there are points in the game that you’ll get lost, simply because you can see through all of the different visuals that are presented. Basically, you jump, kick and shoot your way through seven different stages that all have different sets of enemies and bosses to defeat each with a different strategy. To say that this isn’t difficult would be wrong, but the patterns that are found here can be overused enough to make the game exceptionally easy after an hour of play!

The control is easy enough to pick up on, with the three-button controller working just as well as the six. You have a jumping button, and an attack button, but the problem that you might find with the game is that you will be flying when you want to jump and vice versa. The problem here is that the jump and the flying option are both on the same button and require a different press in order to work right. In the middle of an intense area, you may end up dying simply because you didn’t hit the button the right way and that could aggravate most beginners and annoy veterans alike.

Visually, the game has so much color and so much detail that it’s overwhelming. When I say that the stages are huge and full of life, you have to check out the ‘acid-trip’ stage in order to know what I’m talking about. All of the enemies and even the bosses have a style that differs from one another, but the main focus of the visuals here is to see just how much they could compress into a little cart! The biggest problem with the visuals is that there is so much going on, that you don’t know what you can and cannot touch in the stages, leaving you with a dying factor that is relatively high on all counts. This will aggravate gamers of all types, because it truly aggravated me!

The audio is another feature that Tempo does really well with a hip-hop style of music that just doesn’t stop. With constantly changing music in each of the stages, there is nothing here that repeats, and if it does seem to repeat, then it’s so unnoticeable that you won’t remember it anyway. The audio effects on the other hand are your standard fare of action/adventure sounds with some interesting blips thrown in for good measure. When you combine both of these factors in, you have a game that not only looks good, but sounds good as well!

Tempo is a pretty good game for the sensory presentation that it gives you, but the game play is a little too shallow in my opinion to give any seasoned action game veteran a run for their money. With some pretty cool aspects that the game has to offer, if you see this in a used game store or even on E-Bay, then you’re looking at a solid purchase to add to your library. However, if you’re looking for something completely revolutionary on the 32X, then you need to keep looking, because this one is plenty of new paint on the same old house.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/02, Updated 03/06/02