Beware, I Live: the Reverse-Engineering of Sinistar
Beware, I Live: the Reverse-Engineering of Sinistar
The fifth issue of Quarter Up!, a newsletter about pinball and retro arcade gaming. Articles in this issue: Coverage of Houston Arcade Expo 2023, games seen on the road, the reverse-engineering of Sinistar, league schedules, a recap of the year’s pinball games, and a special offer from Buffalo.
This is an article by SynaMax about reverse-engineering the arcade classic Sinistar. Sinistar is one of the most technically-impressive arcade games of the 1980's, and one of the first to use voice sampling. Using MAME and 6809 assembler tools, he took the entire game apart, and put it all back together better than ever. He even discovered the origins of the famous 'Sinistar roar' sound effect.
He was also able to restore the original title screen from the game (see picture), found in the 1982 prototype.