Sinistar


Sinistar is a multidirectional shooter arcade game developed and manufactured by Williams Electronics. The game was released in 1983, though the in-game copyright notice reads 1982. Sinistar was created by Sam Dicker, Jack Haeger, Noah Falstein, RJ Mical, Python Anghelo, and Richard Witt. In addition to the game's roaring antagonist, Sinistar is known for its high difficulty level.

Gameplay

The player pilots a lone spacecraft, and must create "Sinibombs" by shooting at drifting planetoids and catching the Sinisite 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. Enemy worker ships are also gathering crystals which they use to construct the Sinistar. Enemy warrior ships can 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 necessary for a completely built Sinistar. The player is given a head start before the enemy ships have enough crystals to begin construction. Game ends when the player's ships are all destroyed.
Once the Sinistar is completely built, a digitized voice makes various threatening pronouncements: "Beware, I live!", "I hunger, coward!", "I am Sinistar!", "Run! Run! Run!", "Beware, coward!", "I hunger!", "Run, coward!", and a loud roaring sound. The Sinistar has no weapon attacks, but if it contacts the player's ship while it darts about the playfield, the player's ship will be "eaten" and destroyed. A total of 13 Sinibombs are required to destroy a fully built Sinistar, although an incomplete Sinistar can be damaged to slow construction. Each short-range Sinibomb automatically targets the Sinistar when fired, but can be intercepted by a collision with enemy Workers, enemy Warriors, or a planetoid.
The player moves from one zone to the next each time they defeat the Sinistar. A sequence of four zones repeats continuously after the first zone. Each is named for the most numerous feature of that zone: Worker Zone, Warrior Zone, Planetoid Zone, and Void Zone. Beginning with the first Worker Zone, a completed but damaged Sinistar can be repaired/rebuilt by the enemy Workers by gathering more crystals, extending its "lifespan" if the player is unable to kill it quickly.

255 lives bug

Sinistar contains a bug that grants the player many lives. It happens only if the player is down to one life and the Sinistar is about to eat the player's ship. If a warrior ship shoots and destroys the ship at this moment, it immediately takes the player to zero lives, and the Sinistar eating the player subtracts another life. Since the number of lives is stored in the game as an 8-bit unsigned integer, the subtraction from zero will cause the integer to wrap around to the largest value representable with 8 bits, which is 255 in decimal.

Legacy

Sinistar was the first game to use stereo sound, with two independent front and back sound boards for this purpose. It was also the first to use the 49-way, custom-designed optical joystick that Williams had produced specifically for this game.
There were no contemporary ports of Sinistar. Versions for the Atari 2600 and the Atari 8-bit family 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 and Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Microsoft Windows. It is also available as part of Midway Arcade Treasures, which was released for the Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and PlayStation 2 in 2003, and for Windows in 2004; part of for the PlayStation Portable in late 2005; and part of Midway Arcade Origins for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Sinistar is part of Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits on the Game Boy Advance.
A 3D sequel was released for Windows in 1999, Sinistar: Unleashed.

Clones

Deathstar is a Sinistar clone for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, published by Superior Software in 1984. It was originally developed as an official port to be released by Atarisoft, but they decided to abandon the BBC platform while a number of games were still in development. Sinistaar is a clone for the Tandy Color Computer 3. Xenostar is a public domain clone for the Amiga.

Popular culture

Some of Sinistar's quotations have been included in unrelated video games. In ' the Undead DreadLord hero says, "I Hunger!" In the game ', the neutral hero Firelord's birth sound is him saying "Beware, I live." World of Warcraft paid tribute to the same quote: The boss enemy Reliquary of Souls shouts it when freed. In Team Fortress 2, the Heavy class says the phrases "I Live!" and "Run, Cowards!" The phrase "Run coward! I live!" occasionally appears as splash text on Minecraft. In League of Legends, Dark Star Thresh may say "Beware, I live" upon respawning after a death, while Final Boss Veigar may say "I hunger!" while moving around the map. The original Escape Velocity game also had rare guest appearances of the Sinistar, including some of its catchphrases.
Sinistar is also referred to in various non-video-game media. The Cage song "Grand Ol' Party Crash" samples Sinistar. The film We Are the Strange uses "Beware, I live", "I hunger", "Run, coward", and Sinistar's roar. Sinistar makes several appearances in the webcomic Bob the Angry Flower, and also appears as the title of one of the print editions of the comic. Sinistar appears in the DVD version of the South Park episode trilogy "Imaginationland". The sound bite "Beware, coward" was used in the theme tune to the British Channel 4 video-game TV show Bits. The audio version of podcast IGN Game Scoop uses the sound bite "Beware, I live" in its theme tune.