Sinistar woes

[Lilwolf]

Well, have a sinistar controller.  but until recently 2 weeks ago) I didn't have a good way to use it on my cabinet..  Now I have my tac switches working with USB (cool!  all my oscar hacked mice cp + my 49 way + my keyboard / mice configuration are all no-plug and easy to change)...

So I got it working last week well.. but since then... I haven't had time to really USE it...

Next... I made an offer to send it out for testing...  But before I did.. I thought I would play some sinistar and get it out of my system (would hate to get the urge next week).

I SUCK AT SINISTAR!

I do great on the first level.  Often getting through it in one guy.  But the second level... blah

I one time got enought bombs to destroy sinistar (after 4 extra coins) before he was built... but then I lost a few on the attack. 

Is the second level REALLY that much harder?  I changed the difficulty and it still didn't help much...

Am I just that sucky... Sinistar that hard... Or should I look at trading my joystick for a happs 49 way and see if I'm better at Blitz?

[RayB]

The game has levels??

Man, in that case, I have never gone past level 1.

[shawnzilla]

From what I've read, the corporate types that produced Sinistar forced the programmers to make the game ridiculously difficult once the first level was passed (last minute decision). Hence, it became one of the most notorious quarter munchers of all time.

[Stingray]

I'm pretty fantasticly bad at that one too.

-S

[Daniel270]

From what I've read, the corporate types that produced Sinistar forced the programmers to make the game ridiculously difficult once the first level was passed (last minute decision). Hence, it became one of the most notorious quarter munchers of all time.

I have to agree....

[Xiaou2]

 Sinistar is no joke after level 1! : )    But I have gotten up to level 3 I think, at least once.

  First tip - You have to try to save as many sinibombs as possible when defeating thim on level 1.    It  dosnt take all of them to kill him... but sometime a bomb will miss and hit something else if you are too far.

 You can also shoot sinistar with bombs when he is far offscreen.  Do this, and keep mining bombs in the process.   I think the screen will flash when he gets hit by the bomb even though hes not visible when hit.   By doing the long distance bombings... you will have more bombs left over for the next level.

 Level 2 is near impossible - unless you have a large sinibomb stash already.   Try your best to do the ame techniques... and pray you find enough bombs in time.   

 You can also attack sinistars 'parts' as they are being built.   This can keep him from being built at all : )   Its sometime fun to see how long you can keep him from being built.

 Another Tip: Shoot one side of a rock, then quickly travel to the other side to collect the crystals before they drift past it.  All the while now shooting in the other direction, and repeat.

 Remember that you can shoot the others bullets.  Also, can use heavy asteroid feilds as shields from massive enemy bullet spray.

 Also, practice by Playing the game using an invincibility cheat.   but, try hard not to get hit...   You will gain experience from the high levels and superfast action from this... and beggining levels will be like a cakewalk when your not invincible.

 

[Flinkly]

straight from klov:

Cheats, Tricks and Bugs
There is a very risky maneuver that can lead to either disaster or a powerful comeback. When Sinistar has you in its grasp, a spare shot that is floating in space can kill you, of course taking a life. The unfortunate thing is that when Sinistar's mouth closes, another life is taken, resulting in the loss of two lives. Bear in mind that the Warrior ships will not fire at you when you are in Sinistar's grasp, so a floating shot is the only thing that can make this occur. However, if this happens to you when you are down to your last life, the loss of two lives will reduce your number of lives to -1. This will give you 255 lives.

on a side note, does mame have the easier difficulty settings from before they made it more difficult?

[Kremmit]

Some of the different revisions of the game roms have varying difficulties- varied numbers of enemy ships, crystals produced, etc.