Star Control 3

The Good
I've played SC2 several times and still needed 3 attempts to finish this one. Each race has its own agenda, power, behaviour and motives, which do not relate to one another (for instance, the Doogs have the best ships in the game, but are quite and passive), alliances are made and lost unexpectedly and distributive thinking is required, as well as paper use, because the hint system is bad.

There are many traps in the endless dialogues and one mistake can end the game.The key is to adapt your behaviour for each race and not make moral judgements.

The colonization process is tedious, but rewarding for your space travel. Also, you have to remove precious crew from your ships in order to colonize (30-50 people is decent for any new colony, having 10000+ resources) but the population in your old worlds will increase very slowly, which makes ship building a fast way to get people, even if you'll never use them in combat.

Fancy ship designs are not the best, but each one is unique and probably useful to destroy another. So far I'm using just Utwig, Doog, Ur-Quan,Chmmr(less) and Claircontlar ships in encounters.

The story manages to get real and keep your attention for hours (even if it's scripted). The times waiting for event X to happen can be used in exploration and colonisation.

The Bad
The search system is simply terrible. Each time you need to get to star X you have to carefully look for it in the unexplored and explored ones, because only the colonisation sites appear as valid targets for search. And if you cannot find it, let a second to rotate the galaxy and search again manually. That's simply painful.

The dialogues are very, very, very long and repeated each time you encounter the same race, even if the events who triggered it are long gone. That is making this game an interesting training option for these diplomatic talks :) For instance, each time you encounter Daktaklakpak and not want to kill them (so that you appear as good in the eyes of the League) you have to pass through 12-13 dialogues and have to remember the correct answer each time. But after a while you'll be responding instantly, without bothering about what the other said.

The combat is annoying, boring and very long, interrupted just by an occasional crash into that little tiny planet, then you're trying to get away from the grav pull and find yourself crashing again into that unrealistic space anomaly.

The Bottom Line
If you're deeply involved in politics, your girlfriend left you, or you're trying to convince yourself to give life another chance, this game is a must, but try to win it without watching the walkthrough. Carefully write on a sheet of paper every aspect worth mentioning, because it requires more time and attention than the previous version, which I loved.

The Good
I played this game for the first time recently (2004) after not having played SC1 or 2 in nearly a decade. So unlike seemingly ever other reviewer that has torn this game apart, mostly by comparison to its predecessors, I really enjoyed it! It was similar enough to the original games to give me a little nostalgia rush, yet unique enough that it was playable for its own merits. The plot reminded me a lot of StarCraft, with its twists and constantly shifting alliances, and the dialog, while a little long winded and repetitive at times, was entertaining.

The Bad
Okay, so there were holes in the game, and not just a couple of them. Colony management was glitchy, melée battles were far too easy once you acquire some of the new ships, and there were a number of minor game bugs, like planet stats not appearing correctly on some unimportant planets. And some of the game over sequences were like something out of a bad Choose Your Own Adventure Book (like when you choose to ally with the Crux, and get dropped to a death screen that says "You join the Crux. And then you die." And yes, sometimes it was tedious to wait for fuel reserves to build up. But overall, these things didn't outright ruin the game's playability, in my mind at least.

The Bottom Line
Cut the game some slack. Don't expect a masterpiece, and don't compare it to either of the original Star Control games. It's not even an Accolade game, and you can always expect some inconsistencies when a new company releases a sequel to a classic series. Just keep your expectations realistic, and enjoy the game for what it is - a bit of good simple fun.

== A RETRACTION ==

[This edit posted several months after my original review.]

Having just replayed Star Control 2 for the first time in nearly a decade, I just couldn't let my review for Star Control 3 stand without an important clarification.

StarCon 3 is almost EXACTLY like StarCon 2. Vance's review said it best. It appears that the Legend Entertainment Company LITERALLY took StarCon 2 and said to themselves, "Hey, this is a great game, and if it aint broke, don't fix it!", so they added digitized voices for each race, jazzed up the graphics and audio a touch, dumbed down the combat difficulty and AI, and re-released the all-new Star Control 2b for the next generation.

Let me emphasize this again - this game has the EXACT same plot, same storyline, suspiciously similar dialog, the same beginning, middle and end. The same goals, the same aims, the same alien races, the same ships. They renamed the Hierarchy to the Crux. Threw in a brief backstory with a one-line reference to StarCon 2 just so that people don't forget that this is supposed to be a sequel to it rather than a remake of it. But this game really is StarCon 2, revised.

Don't get me wrong, the game is still great. Of course it is, because StarCon 2 was great and this has better graphics and voiceovers! But play this as a sequel to the original Star Control, or heck, even as a standalone game. If you play the series in chronological order back to back, you are going to be left with a sour taste in your mouth when you feel like you've just played StarCon 2 through twice.

So, I correct myself - I said above, enjoy Star Control 3 on its own merits. Now I say, enjoy Star Control 3 on its own, period. Unless you prefer the nostalgia of an original game, in which case just play Star Control 2 and overlook this unimaginative remake altogether.

The Good
... .... .... hmmm...... neat box, you can store things in it!

The Bad
Everything really, I just hate it... I hate accolade 2... They should just let the ancient ones do this one, they are much better at it.

The Bottom Line
Dont waste your money on it. Star control fans should also keep your hands away from the big disapointment...