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 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
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.