Star Control 3

aka: Star Control III, Star Control: Kessari Quadrant, Star Control: The Kessari Quadrant
Moby ID: 125
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$1.35 new on Steam

Description official descriptions

Since the events in Star Control 2 the Ur-Quan have been pacified and the captain who bravely destroyed the Sa-Matra has had a horrible vision of the future. Suddenly without warning, all Hyperspace travel in the universe has stopped. Top scientists have pinpointed the cause of this disturbance somewhere in unexplored space in an area known as the Kessari Quadrant. Hastily assembling a fleet of ships as and an untested Precusor star drive... a loose alliance of alien races known as The League of Sentient Races sends a task force to the Kessari Quadrant. You are its commander.

Star Control 3 features a new 3D star map, new alien races to discover, new worlds to explore and colonize, new artifacts to research and a new isometric Hyper Melee battle system for inter-starship battles.

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Credits (DOS version)

115 People (110 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.6 out of 5 (based on 55 ratings with 14 reviews)

A mediocre sequel to a true legend.

The Good
Most of the voice acting fits the motif if you ask me, and HyperMelee is fun even if many of the SC2 ships are missing..

The Bad
Many aspects.. for example the MIDI musics aren't very good, the GUI looks pretty drab and the story quite doesn't match SC2 in excellence.. not to mention that this game is boring. Seriously.

The Bottom Line
A sequel to SC2, but not made by the same people, and it shows.. very well. SC3 is an ok game, just that, ok, but if you compare it to SC2 it is like a comparation between the sun and a worn candle.

Anyone would be better off playing Star Control 2.

DOS · by RmM (68) · 1999

Great adventure, fascinating story - poor strategy part

The Good
The adventure part is really superb - Legend standard at its best. The character races are highly elaborated and the voice recordings are really enjoyable. I often caught myself laughing heartily while listening to the whining Spathi or abusive Vux. The story could easily pass as an award winning SF novel.

The Bad
The strategy and colonizing part is a spoiler. I resigned to cheating and edited the required resources in the save file just to get the story going. The combat section is best done in watch mode with the AI set to max for the own side. When you subsequently switch from manual to auto mode you can even select your ship and then let the CPU do the dirty work.

The Bottom Line
A fascinating, deep story worth exploring. The rest of the game design is better left unspoken...

DOS · by Wimp (65) · 2001

An exceprt from the SC3 staff meeting...

The Good
PROJECT HEAD: Okay, staff, let's really take this alliance building, diplomacy thing full tilt on this one.

DESIGN STAFF: Sure.

The Bad
HEAD: How's the dialogue coming along?

SCRIPTWRITER: Uh... well... um... I like Juicy Fruit?

HEAD: Okay, let's rip it off straight from SC2, shall we? How's testing coming along.

RESEARCH STAFF: We've got Bob the Janitor and our pet gerbil playing SC2 right now, sir.

HEAD: And...?

RESEARCH: Bob's getting upset because the gerbil keeps beating him at HyperMelee.

HEAD: Right. Let's dumb down the artificial intelligence. Have the enemy fly in some random direction as soon as combat starts. Okay, what have we done to research the plot?

RESEARCH: We watched the "Friends" marathon.

HEAD: And?

SCRIPTWRITER: I have a secret friend.

HEAD: Sounds like that man's making progress.

DESIGN: Yes, sir. He doesn't think he's a plank anymore.

HEAD: Okay, about the plot.

RESEARCH: Well, Bob the janitor is having trouble understanding what's going on in SC2, so we figured we'd make it a little less complex.

HEAD: How much less complex?

RESEARCH: About as simple as an episode of... well...

HEAD: Let me guess, an episode of "Friends," right?

RESEARCH: Could be, yes.

SCRIPWRITER: Cheez-Wiz is the opiate of the masses.

HEAD: Comission that man to write that Star Control novel we were talking about.

RESEARCH: Ah, "Interbellum."

HEAD: And make the Spathi sound like Woody Allen!

DESIGN: We can make all the villains TOTALLY one-sided dorks!

RESEARCH: Bob's eating his 3DO controller...

HEAD: Take out all the planet exploration features!

DESIGN: BACK TO MIDI MUSIC!!!

HEAD: Create TWO WHOLE MINUTES of CG movies!

RESEARCH: We can use random goobers as voice talent!

SCRIPTWRITER: I have my own Tandy, you know.

The Bottom Line
GERBIL: This is gonna suck!

DOS · by Vance (94) · 2000

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Star Control 3 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Novel

A novel titled Star Control: Interbellum was published by Prima and written by author W. T. Quick. The book supposedly contains story and events that takes place between Star Control 2 and Star Control 3... however the popular opinion is that the author has never played or was ever given the plot to either game. Also the player character of both games is given a name for the novel, "Commander Omega".

Screenshot capturing technique

This game will dump a screenshot to a .PCX file if you hit PRTSC during gameplay.

Star Control III

Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III owned the character rights to the various alien races, Accolade owned the Star Control copyright. When the original creators declined to make the new sequel, Accolade gave them an ultimatum; sell the character rights or part three would be made with entirely new characters, no continuity involved whatsoever. The creators decided to make some final money off of their creations. A side note to this is that none of the original artists involved with Star Control II were even approached to work on Star Control III.

Information also contributed by Aaron Grier, Vance, and WildKard

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Windows added by Picard. Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: RmM, Shoddyan, PoliticallyCorrupt, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added May 21, 1999. Last modified March 18, 2024.