Sinistar

Atari console exclusive

The player pilots a lone spacecraft, and must create "Sinibombs" by shooting at drifting planetoids and catching the crystals that are thereby released. Sinibombs are needed to defeat the game boss, Sinistar, an animated spacecraft with a demonic skull face. Sinistar does not exist at the start of the game, and is continuously under construction by enemy worker ships. Though time is crucial, attempting to mine too quickly will destroy a planetoid without releasing any crystals.

Released: 1982
Platforms: Apple IIGS Arcade Atari 5200 Atari 8-bit
Genres: Arcade Shoot 'em up Shooter
Developers: WMS Industries
Publishers: —
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Action Science fiction
Country: United States
Languages: English

About

Sinistar is a 1983 multidirectional shooter arcade video game developed and manufactured by Williams Electronics. It was created by Sam Dicker, Jack Haeger, Noah Falstein, RJ Mical, Python Anghelo, and Richard Witt. Players control a space pilot who battles the eponymous Sinistar, a giant, anthropomorphic spacecraft. The game is known for its use of digitized speech and high difficulty level.

Although not ported standalone to home consoles, Sinistar was included in multiple arcade compilations. A sequel from a different developer and publisher, Sinistar: Unleashed was released for Microsoft Windows in 1999.

Keywords

spaceship
high score
single-screen level
titular antagonist
unbeatable enemies
never-ending
speech synthesis
meme origin

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player pilots a lone spacecraft, flying through a large region of space, part of which is shown on the mini-map at the top of the screen. Shooting drifting planetoids releases small, white crystals. When collected, each crystal turns into a "Sinibomb", which is the weapon for defeating the end of level boss, Sinistar, an animated spacecraft with a demonic skull face. A planetoid contains a limited number of crystals; shooting it too rapidly causes it to explode.

Sinistar does not exist at the start of a level, but is constructed by red enemy worker ships. Workers cannot hurt the player, but they compete to collect crystals to build the Sinistar. Warrior ships directly attack the player's ship, shoot planetoids to mine crystals, and guard the Sinistar while it is being built. It takes 20 crystals to create the 20 pieces of a completely built Sinistar, but only 13 Sinibombs to destroy it. The 7 pieces making up the face are considered a single piece once Sinistar is active.

Development

Sinistar uses a 49-way optical joystick that Williams produced specifically for this game.

Sinistar's dialogue was voiced by radio personality John Doremus while its roar was created from a previously existing stock recording of a gorilla. The audio played through an HC-55516 CVSD decoder.

Reception

In 1995, Flux magazine ranked Sinistar 72nd on their Top 100 Video Games. They praised the game calling it a "truly harrowing" arcade classic.

Legacy

There were no contemporary ports of Sinistar. Versions for Atari 2600 and the Atari 8-bit computers were in progress, but not completed. Sinistar was commercially available in the mid-1990s as part of Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for the Super NES, Sega Genesis Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Microsoft Windows. It is also available as part of Midway Arcade Treasures for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 in 2003, and for Windows in 2004; part of Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for the PlayStation Portable in late 2005; and part of Midway Arcade Origins for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Sinistar is included in Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits on the Game Boy Advance.

A 3D sequel from a different developer and publisher was released for Windows in 1999 as Sinistar: Unleashed. The project was originally not connected with Sinistar, but the license was acquired during development.