Okay, now I’m gonna get my cosmic retribution for every time I complained to Brian Emling about videogame humor that I didn’t get.

Sinistar was a stupidly difficult arcade game from 1982. (I’ve only played emulators) Basically, there were a bunch of little worker robots buzzing around mining asteroids for materials to build the boss. You tried to hold it off as long as you could, then had to fight Sinistar when he was inevitably completed. What made the game special is the fact that Sinistar would taunt you for as long as he was alive.

The things it does for your sense of involvement in the game is huge. I see Sinistar as a more primative version of GlaDOS from Portal. The big bad calling you out, telling you how weak and powerless you are- It makes it personal.

There’s an interesting (And rather Tongue-in-Cheek) article on the Philosophy of Sinistar Here