Sinistar

[Cyberpunk]

OK, this one is a game from my mispent youth. Sinistar is an arcade game released by Williams in 1982. It belongs to a class of video games from the 1980s called "twitch games". Other "twitch games" include Tempest, and Defender. I think not many of you will remember these. I'm an old fart, so not only do I remember them, I plugged quite a few 10p's into them as well.

The player pilots a lone fighter ship through the galaxy, initially blasting away at drifting asteroids to "mine" Sinisite Crystals from them, which, when harvested, create Sinibombs. Sinibombs are the only weapon capable of damaging the evil Sinistar.

The player creates Sinibombs by shooting at the drifting asteroids and catching the crystals released. Shooting the asteroid made it shake, but if too many shots are fired at a asteroid, at too fast of a firing rate, the asteroid will explode, and no crystals will be released. At the same time, the asteroid must shake a certain amount to actually release any crystals. It normally takes between 3 to 6 shots (depending on the size of the asteroid) to release between 1 and 10 crystals. Additional crystals can also be obtained from the same asteroid, as long as the number of shots and firing rate do not cause it to explode.

At the same time that the player is trying to get crystals, "worker" ships are also trying to take the crystals. They use these crystals to create Sinistar, the skeletal-looking boss robot satelite who is trying to destroy the player. And if that wasn't enough, other ships, called "warrior ships", are trying to shoot the player's ship. Also, the warrior ships can be seen shooting at planetoids to mine crystals when they aren't trying to attack the player or guard the Sinistar.

If the player's ship is destroyed before the Sinistar is formed, the game shows how far along the worker ships are in building the Sinistar. The workers must harvest 20 crystals before the Sinistar is completely formed. Once it is completely formed, a digitized voice says "Beware, I live". Sinistar then proceeds to hunt the player ship, and he's godamned fast!! While he is trying to collide with the player's ship in order to eat it, he says further things. His seven voice clips are "Beware, I live!", "I am Sinistar!", "Run! Run! Run!", "Beware, coward!", "I hunger!", "Run, coward!", and a loud roar. If the Sinistar succeeds in colliding with the player's ship, the ship spins out of control and then the Sinistar eats the ship. As you can imagine, that would not be part of a great day.

A total of 13 Sinibombs are required to destroy a fully built Sinistar (one Sinibomb for each of the twelve pieces, plus an additional Sinibomb for the entire face). Each Sinibomb attempts to target and hit the Sinistar, but each Sinibomb can also be intercepted by a collision with a worker, warrior, warrior shot, or an asteroid. If the player's ship is shot by a warrior or eaten by the Sinistar, the status screen will show the number of Sinibombs remaining and the number of Sinistar pieces remaining.

There are four zones—Worker Zone, Warrior Zone, Planetoid Zone, and Void Zone—that repeat over and over again. The player moves from one zone to the next after defeating the Sinistar. The first three zones have more workers, warriors and planetoids, respectively. The Void Zone is especially difficult because it has almost no planetoids. If yoiu run out of Sinibombs,a partially destroyed Sinistar can be rebuilt, resulting in a race against the workers rebuilding Sinistar, and the player making Sinibombs.

Two interesting things about this game. The first was it was the first game to use digitised speech, and employed two sound cards to make stereo sound. The other is that Williams designed and built a custom 49 way optical joystick for this game.

It was never widely ported, but can be found on Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for the SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, and PC, or Midway Arcade Treasures, which was released for the Xbox, GameCube and PS2.

Sinistar Youtube Video

[Hendo]

I too am an old fart but I've never even heard of this. It looks like an earlier form of Crazy Comets or Mega Apocalypse.

[Cyberpunk]

I too am an old fart but I've never even heard of this. It looks like an earlier form of Crazy Comets or Mega Apocalypse.

Yeah, sort of like that Hendo. I used to play it in a cafe next to the local swimming pool. I got quite good at it, but at soon got replaced. I think it was the sound samples that hooked me first. In 1982, hearing a voice in a game was unheard of. Incidently, RetroEd has just reminded me the the sample "Beware I Live" from this game is used in the opening music for the GameScoop podcast.

[retroed]

Incidently, RetroEd has just reminded me the the sample "Beware I Live" from this game is used in the opening music for the GameScoop podcast.

Yeah, I knew the sample was from an old game, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you which one it was from.

[spatular]

is that cab yours?

It belongs to a class of video games from the 1980s called "twitch games". Other "twitch games" include Tempest, and Defender.

used to like defender on the atari 2600, but never heard of sinistar, sounds interesting! i guess modern shooters would still fit into that twitch games thing?

[Cyberpunk]

No, it's not my cab. I don't have any of those. It's just a pic I put on for show

[TopGunKnacker]

i had this on the BBC micro when i was a kid, its fucking awesome. scared the shit out of me!