Star Control 3

The Good
Umm.... Duhhhhhhhhh... Tell me about the rabbits, George.

The Bad
Where to begin? The gameplay is a joke, all around. The Strategy element is dull, and waiting for colonies to produce fuel for your mothership causes the game to drag horribly. The plot is excrutiatingly linear, and while it may SEEM like you're doing things, in fact you're just cruising around waiting for the game's clock to hit Point X, at which point your computer pops up and tells you where to go next. The dialogue, when not ripped straight from SC2, is poor. The new alien races are almost uniformally poorly-thought out, and either stupid or excessively silly. The captured claymation video is almost always bad, and the humanoid characters are hideously deformed. Oh, and they absolutely destroyed the play dynamics of the series by attempting to move the gameplay into full 3D, and the new ships available to play throw the previously perfect balance of the battles way off. Finally, extra demerits for completely ruining what had been a wonderful series.

The Bottom Line
How would I describe this game to others? With words entirely inappropriate for a family site.

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!

The Good
The graphics are OK, I guess.

The Bad
Everything! It's a poor sequel to what I perceive as the greatest game of all times. Even the graphics (which are somewhat better) aren't half as good as in Star Control II. It lacks the elaborate, amuzing dialogues from II, the fast pace action, the broad plot and interesting twists...

A huge disappointment in every respect.

The Bottom Line
Don't touch that, and hope you don't know where it's been.