Review of Sinistar Alpha release, from March Next Generation. I got a chuckle out of the last sentence. Rich
SINISTAR UNLEASHED
A game originally intended to be a Wing Commander-Style space opera gets a redesign and becomes a classic arcade update. Will this shooter be worthy of its namesake?
PUBLISHER - THQ
DEVELOPER - GameFX
RELEASE DATE - Summer '99
ORIGIN - U.S.
Retrofitting may be the best word to describe what GameFX has done with Out of the Void, the name Sinistar Unleashed was called when we originally previewed it 2O issues ago in NG 31. Since then, GameFX scrapped its original plans for a massive space odyssey in favor of a fast-and-simple 3D shooter. And when the company obtained the license to Sinistar, re-tailoring the former Out of the Void's gameplay to the frantic stylings of the classic Williams arcade title seemed like a natural fit.
When first previewed in these pages, Out of the Void was technically superb--it was the first truly native 3Dfx game the NG staff had seen. And despite the year and a half of catch-up time GameFX has given the rest of the industry, the effects have taken on more polish and the game retains some brilliant spacescapes that may still go unrivaled when it finally does come to market.
But the gameplay will, according to the team at GameFX, parallel the design of the original Sinistar. Players still have to shoot asteroids that hold the crystals necessary to make Sinibombs. As the player mines the crystals, alien grunts will still attack the player's ship. And the ultimate goal remains the same: To make enough Sinibombs to destroy the Sinistar, the Deathstar-like boss on every level which eventually hatches and hunts the player.
"The original Sinistar was kind of an obscure game," admits Mark Tsai, Senior Producer for GameFX. "But our Sinistar isn't just a remake," Tsai quickly points out, "It's really an extension, there's a lot more going on."
"Instead of just the one weapon and missiles," says GameFX Designer Walter Wright, "In addition to your basic weapon, we've got at least eight different weapons you can select from. Plus some specials, like mines and bombs."
A weaponry demo calls up some solid effects, including a powerful lightning gun that chains to other enemy ships. Players will also be able to collect a variety of crystals, each valuable in its own way. And of course, there will be greater variety in the enemies.
"In the original game there was one Sinistar on each level," Wright says, "the same boss. We decided from the beginning that we wanted you to meet different creatures as you went through the game."
And the crop of creatures is fairly impressive. The current plan calls for the game to span 24 levels, where every three standard levels are followed by a bonus level. The first 12 levels features an insectlike race of enemies, while the second 12 take place in a darker universe, what Wright calls "the distilled evil universe," where the Sinistar bosses are spawned. Players will pilot six ships over the course of the game; each similar in design but a bit more evolved than its predecessor Of course, as the danger level ramps up, players will gain access to new ships. And will any of them look like the ship from the original Sinistar?
"No." Was Wright's surprising answer. "Rather than trying to take Sinistar and put it into 3D," he explains, "we tried to develop the idea of the original Sinistar as a contemporary one, given the tools we've got."
While GameFX should be commended for expanding the Sinistar universe, it seems rash that they've dismissed all of the visual inspiration of the original. Activision's Battlezone remake, which was a radical departure in gameplay, brought fantastic, yet familiar ship designs to the battlefield. As GameFX's ship is exactly the same as it was when the game was called Out of The Void, Next Generation can't help but to point out to its readers that the team still seems somewhat attached to the former project.
As THQ has surely paid Midway a fair amount of money for use of the Sinistar name, it would make sense for GameFX to get off their assets and rework some of the art to capitalize on the new franchise. The ink was just drying on the licensing deal when Next Generation visited GameFX, so there's hope that some of this kind of work will happen. If not, the developer risks alienating those veterans among us who remember the original's throaty synthesized cry, "Run, coward!"
These observations aside, the team is closing in on solid arcade gameplay and controls that may have some players letting go of the mouse and dusting off the flightstick. THQ purchased GameFX in late '98 and this title is the publisher's first internally developed PC title. While Sinistar Unleashed might not be perfect when it goes out the door, we assure you it will be a heck of a lot better than most of those wrestling games THQ keeps sending us, and that's a good start. |
