Star Control 3

aka: Star Control III, Star Control: Kessari Quadrant, Star Control: The Kessari Quadrant
Moby ID: 125
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$3.99 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)

This is what happens when games are designed by committee

The Good
Ummmm... the CD-ROM makes a lovely coaster.

The Bad
The plot was horrible. It was an awkward slapping-together of old Star Control 2 plot lines (much of the dialogue taken out of Starcon2 verbatim) and poorly thought out new ones. Most of the time you were simply waiting to be fed instructions from the hint sytem. (It's a sure sign that a game is bad if it needs an integrated hint system).

The combat was poorly-balanced. Unlike the old Star Control 2 melee, which I still play on occasion, the ships tended to be horribly lopsided, hard to distinguish from each other and boring to fly.

The music is terrible, especially when compared with its predecessor (why they went back to MIDI music from MOD is beyond me). While some of the voice talent is quite good, this is neutralized by the fact that the dialogue is quite horrible.



The Bottom Line
"An eloquent argument for why Accolade should stick to sports games"

DOS · by Jonathan Daggar (4) · 1999

Terrible abuse of a good title by accolade

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...

DOS · by necr0n0mic0n (2) · 1999

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.