Sinistar

I have a huge tolerance for old games; since I actually prefer simple sounds, basic graphics, and bare no frills gameplay (obv by choice); but in this case I've simply found a pill I could not take. Basically what I can't tolerate besides being an obv bad ripoff of Bosconian; is the gawd awful gameplay. You just can't control your ship adequately, no matter what. Once it moves, it just won't stop moving; I'm all for realism, but this is too much. The only time it remains still is at startup. And it won't matter if you don't fuel it either; since every other object will eventually bump you out of place. I guess in theory you could always counter trust (in the opposite direction); but again, if I wanted to play an IRL physics sim; I'd be at NASA. This wouldn't be a problem with any other space shooter, but not here. The problem is that you have to coax the ship into "mining" some minuscule glowing rocks; known here as crystals, in order to make a bomb; a 'sini-bomb'. &BTW, that bomb is the only way to defeat the "living" enemy base; known as a (surprise; not really) Sinistar (Death Star rip-off, *cough*) So now instead of shooting like in a normal shoot'em up game, you have to perform the dual lame, boring and next to impossible task of "mining". Which is really nothing more that shooting at the gray rocky asteroids with glowing dots. The other problem is that the damn things are also moving as well! Therefore, hitting them continuously enough to yield a crystal; is hard. So you see, hitting them casually is no problem; the real problem is doing so in a controlled fashion. Not hitting them enough yields nothing, and overhitting them also yields nothing (as it destroys the 'roid) And to make matters ridiculously worse; when you think you've managed some "mining" balance, you realize that there's always a whole bunch of red parasitic mining drones of SiniStar following you around in order to steal your crystals! You can not outrun them, and shooting them is pointless and a waste of time; since SiniStar can conjure up an unlimited supply. Because, lo and behold, SiniStar is also "made" of those silly thingies! They should've better called them generic energy and source material, or something, IMHO. Again, the issue is proper control; as even with a plentiful bounty; everything will get either scattered or stolen, before you can catch the floating pixies. So your best "strategy" then is, oxymoronically, to mine as close to the darn thing as possible. Even if by some miracle, you manage to get the unfathomable large amount of bombs necessary to defeat the SiniStar, and unlucky to not nuke it within time; you still virtually lose, since it's very hard to launch them all at it whilst in pursuit mode. And to make matters worse, if you die; the level doesn't reset itself. Ie, the SiniStar doesn't start to build over again. So you get no resting break; hence, if sheer difficulty was the aim, then they succeeded brilliantly. So only true masochists can like this "game". It should be rather obv by now that there wasn't meant for inclusion any powerups, of any kind. And these things are not merely silly issues, they are beyond annoying; game ruining issues. At the very least, neophytes would be put off. Even the digitized sound FX are lame and badly stolen from Bosconian, which are completely wasted and ineffective; as it's mostly SiniStar's voice just to inform you that you are about to be "eaten" in several laughable ways. Graphics are the only thing they bothered to actually improve; a little. That's of course due to being a newer system; because the look and feel is obv the same as in Bosconian. And just to make sure there was the least amount of effort in avoiding an illegal copyright infringement claim, they moved the radar to the top of the screen. That'll sure fool everybody :roll-eyes: Hey (obv to those who know), your whole game is a blatant ripoff "clone"! So why didn't they just make the Sinistar vulnerable to conventional attacks? Oh yeah, that would've been obv too close of a resemblance to Bosconian!!! I'm not against basing your game on some other, and therefore creating "inspired" work; like Galaxian did with Space Invaders. If they are good, different and successful enough on their own; but this just sadly isn't, none of that. What it is, is an exercise in futility; an endless series of frustration, disappointment, and ripping-off everybody involved; specially Namco, and all the naive players out there...

Sinistar is a very hard game. You fly around in a ship and your objective is to destroy Sinistar. To do so you shoot asteroids to get bombs and use the bombs to destroy Sinistar. It may sound easy but it is very challenging but very fun too. Things get really crazy when you advance the the second area. This is an original game. It is a classic. Sinistar also has a very memorable villain. It is of course Sinistar. It will take most of your bombs to defeat Sinistar. I have so much fun playing this game. Sinistar is also very addicting. I spend hours playing it. Sinistar is the best arcade game ever made. If you like a challenge and enjoy classic arcade games then this is the perfect game to play.