Star Control 3

The Good
the story was top notch -- easily as good as sc2. It is a SHAME I blew off this game back when it was released due to the change in developer and the added colony-management feature.

The Bad
the colony management portion of the game was so-so, but in sc2 the mining did get old and the colony management is simple and easy to set/forget.

The Bottom Line
When SC3 first game out, I blew it off just like everyone else did. For the dame reasons -- it wasn't made by the original developers and they added colony management which wasn't true to SC2.

I loved sc2 so much that I replayed it this year, 2010. After I finished it I decided to give SC3 a try and absolutely loved every minute of it. Even more than replaying SC2! It was all new content. The sc3 story fit perfectly into the sc2 world and far expanded it. It wrapped up numerous unfinished story components of sc2 and added many new elements. The new races were done very very well, the old races were also done well. I think anyone who has fond memories of sc2 owes it to themselves to go back and give this a try without the biases that kept you from playing it back then.

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
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!