Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon

The Good
The first Space Quest pretty much defined the whole series with its lighthearted, amusing space tale about an extraordinary janitor who keeps surviving against all odds. The second installment was less funny and focused more on various hazards. Space Quest III goes back to the template of the first game, but enhances it with more humor and personality. Filled with all kinds of wacky situations, weird encounters, and silly fun, Space Quest III is perhaps the most typical game of the series, its most "pure" representative. Together with its sequel, it is also the one fans of the series usually remember most fondly.

Gameplay-wise, Space Quest III has decidedly more to offer than the previous games. The new text parser allows you to choose more concrete verbs and some very specific actions. There is an excellent variety of different situations and actions you could perform in the game. From traditional exploration and item-gathering to playing funny minigames, navigating a spaceship, or infiltrating a company building disguised as a janitor (what a disguise, indeed...), there is always plenty of things to do, keeping the game fresh and exciting. There is not a bit of repetitive gameplay in Space Quest III, and it is amusing and diverse from the beginning to the end.

The humor is also much more evident in this title than in the two previous games. There are more weird characters, all sorts of funny situations, plus the traditional death scenes that were the trademark of Sierra's adventures at that time. Pop culture references, movie spoofs (a terminator called "Arnoid"? Really?..), and situations far surpassing the earlier installments in comedic entertainment value (such as a mecha fight against a dorky office boss) are much more prominent. The game is more verbose and descriptive, having somewhat warmer, eloquent writing. Also, while in the two previous games you were still a nameless "player" (although the hero's real name was mentioned in documentation), this is the first game where Roger Wilco acts under his own name. In this game particularly, the charming "loser" personality of Roger comes to life. Later Space Quest installments added more character development, but Space Quest III made a step in that direction.

Technically, this game is a noticeable step forwards compared to its immediate predecessor; with a new, updated version of classic Sierra text-based interface, the game's interaction became richer, more intelligent and satisfying. The graphics are also much more impressive than in the first two installments; until now, Space Quest III is remembered as one of the finest examples of late EGA art. Even compared to other Sierra games made with the same engine, those visuals have something that make them stand out.

The game presents a good variety of locations, classical Space Quest-style planet-hopping that was lacking in the second game. From a spaceship graveyard to an intergalactic burger restaurant, from a mysterious planet with a purple surface and a shop that sells tourist souvenirs to the headquarters of an evil corporation, the locations of Space Quest III always keep the player interested, pressing him to continue playing and see where he would be taken next.

The Bad
Space Quest III has its weaknesses. Firstly, while it does expand the game world and increases diversity, it is still a rather short and fairly straightforward game. There is hardly any exploration of a continuous world in the sense of King's Quest. In fact, most of the locations are very small and there isn't much you can do there besides performing the necessary actions to advance the plot. The only exception is the initial junkyard - which is, frankly, not a particularly thrilling area to begin with. It is also disproportionally long, occupying about a third of the entire game. And while you can visit several planets afterwards, the whole thing is over a bit too soon, with only the tightly scripted hazards creating the illusion of a longer adventure.

In terms of storytelling, Space Quest III is a disappointment. The two earlier games were hardly groundbreaking works of fiction, but at least they had overarching goals and objectives that made sense within a larger context. In this installment, you escape from the lengthy junkyard sequence only to travel to the few available planets without any compelling reason. The actual plot information is handed to you almost by accident, and by that time you might have already completed areas you had no idea were crucial for your quest.

The Bottom Line
Amusing characters, all kinds of weird deaths to avoid, funny locations - the classic Space Quest ingredients are all there. Space Quest III feels a bit too simple at times and suffers from traditional Sierra-style strange logic; but it is also a dynamic, entertaining game that stays in your memory with all its silliness and charm.

The Good
the Two Guys from Andromeda has brought us a fine addition to the ever-popular Space Quest series. In Space Quest 2, Roger Wilco entered the asteroid of his arch nemesis, Vohaul, and thwarted his plans to infest his home planet, Xenon, with genetically-engineered life insurance salesman, and in the process, shut down Vohaul's nervous system. He then escaped by a pod and slumbered in its sleep chamber. Space Quest 3: The Pirates of Pestulon picks up right where the previous adventure left off. While the pod was cruising driftlessly through space, another pod controlled by robots beams up Roger's pod, and the robot pod crash-lands in a nearby junk freighter. Roger's first mission is to find a ship so that he can escape this pile of junk.

But that's only half the plot. You see, Roger later discovers a hidden message inside a video game that the two guys themselves have landed themselves in trouble by ScumSoft, the evil pirate software company whose headquarters are on the planet Pestulon, hence the game's subtitle, but only if he wins the game. Roger must make a dash for Pestulon and rescue the two guys from ScumSoft, but to do this, Roger must play a series of mini-games at several stops. More on these shortly.

Like Leisure Suit Larry 2, King's Quest IV, and Police Quest II, SQ3 was designed using Sierra's old SCI0 engine, where the player must use the arrow keys to control Roger around and type commands into a text box in order to perform actions like picking up an object and talking to someone. A menu provides the ability to get help; save, restore, and restart games, or quit SQ3. Like Sierra's older games, there is the so-called "boss" key, which is an option inside the game that you can select when your boss is in the same room as you, and allows the game to behave like an application until you press another key. Sadly, in this game, pressing the "boss" key will tell you that it won't function.

Unlike the previous SQ's, there are quite a few planets to explore. This includes Phleebhut, a planet where he meets a terminator sent by the Gippazoid Novelty Co. to assassinate him for failing to pay for the Labion Mating Whistle back in SQ2, and is the planet where he exchanges his glowing gem for three items at the World-O-Wonders. Then it's off to Ortega where he discovers Pestulon and blows up the force field surrounding it, as well as Ortega.

As I said earlier, to complete his mission, travel around the SQ universe for the planet that holds the two guys, Roger must play a series of mini-games and win, and the first game he must play is Astro Chicken, where the object is to guide a chicken to safety as you direct it to land on its pad and nowhere else (without exhausting its feed), or else the chicken blows up and loses one of its lives. Then when Roger manages to rescue the two guys at ScumSoft, he gets treated to a game where the object is to beat the ScumSoft employer in a robot suit. If that wasn't enough, he has to play Star Wars with ScumSoft's ships in the game's finale.

The graphics are highly detailed than those in SQ1 (the AGI version) and SQ2, meaning that they were done in 16-color EGA, and the game has support for various sound cards such as the Adlib and the Roland MT32/LAPC1. I heard that SQ3 sounds good if you have the Roland. I just brought a soundcard that emulates the MT32, so when I ran SQ3 with MT32 enabled, it sounds great.

The Bad
I didn't really like Astro Chicken, partly because it wastes more of your time trying to win just to get further through the game, when you can spend that time exploring the rest of the SQ3 universe.

The Bottom Line
SQ3 is much better than the previous Space Quest's because of its colorful graphics and excellent sounds. Not to be missed. ****

The Good
Roger Wilco is not more than the average guy. In fact, he' less. Being a janitor on a spaceship is not what I would consider a promising career. To make matters worse, he crashes in a junkyard, is wanted by some weird post-science fiction female Terminator and dies on every possible occasion. It's fun. As long as you don't forget to save regularly, at least. Space Quest III is a funny game with all sorts of little allusions to other science fiction characters.

The Bad
A Sierra adventure is a deadly trap for its characters. And it's not much fun to see Wilco being ripped to pieces for the 99th time. The music is nerve wracking from today's point of view. But that applies to most games of that decade.

The Bottom Line
The game is a combined graphic/text adventure: You have to type in your instructions, and in case Roger Wilco gets what you want, he executes your order. And dies as often as possible. What makes up for this, is that Space Quest III is really funny. So take your time, turn off the music and stockpile some tranquilizer. Or you will go through the roof after Wilco's first dozens of deaths