Sinistar: Unleashed

The Good
Sinistar Unleashead is one of the first games to fully depend on a 3d graphics board for its game engine. The game is wonderful to look at. The components of the game react as if they had independent minds. The coding behind this must be monstrous.

The Bad
Sinistar looks wonderful but the game itself is a joke. There is no plot, no story, the human has been completely removed. Why did they make this game? Who wants to play asteroids 30 000? An idea gets old, so you don't keep adding words to it, you start fresh. The people who made Sinistar must believe that the 70s were the best. It's way too hard to play.

The Bottom Line
Don't buy this game. This thing is more like a file in the FBI about a misconduct. This is not to bring into your home.

The Good
I lack the tons of free time necessary for many of the other games in my collection, since I actually have a life off the computer... no time for "persistant online worlds" for this working guy! Sinistar Unleashed is a game I can pop in, play for a half-hour or so, and let go.

It's FUN... challenging but not too terribly difficult... and has a sense of immersion that works for me. The plot is "thin," sure... but not half as thin as, say, "Quake 3" or "Unreal Tournament."

This is probably the single best arcade-translation I've seen... it plays like the original arcade game... but made "real." In other words, it's faithful in execution and concept to the classic arcade game but one could imagine that the arcade game was an approximation of the "reality" which THIS game represents.

Like my title says... the measure of a game, to me, is "do I keep putting it in and playing it?" I've had this game for ages and I still play it, while supposedly "better" games have long since gone on to "gathering dust" mode.

The Bad
The only thing... and I mean that, the ONLY thing... I don't like about the game is how it handles saving. If you have to exit the game in the middle of a level, it penalizes you a ship. That's fine if you leave to "cheat the game," but it sucks if you have to stop playing to take care of "real life." Still, this is not NEARLY as offensive in this regard as Diablo 2 was (where all your progress gets deleted each time you quite the game except for what gates you've opened and which town you're in, and what's in your inventory... everything you've killed is alive again! I HATE THAT!)

The Bottom Line
It's fun, immersive, yet mindless entertainment... tough enough to be a challenge but not so tough as to be frustrating (a common complaint of mine). I HIGHLY recommend this game. If you find a copy, or if you want to look for one on Ebay or elsewhere... DO SO. It's a blast!