Star Control III

I never really liked the puppets in SC3, and some of the sound effects are terrible (the sound that you hear when you move between Star Systems reminds me every time of my toast popping up in my toaster) and the music is crap. That said, this game is still a ton of fun and aptly continues the story set up in Star Control 2. The new alien races are well thought out, their combat capabilities are fun and the 4X-lite style of star system management is really easy to get into. Before long you'll be cranking out Doog ships like crazy. The best part about this game is the story and the characters. I still find myself quoting lines from the game, Daktakbackpack is a common utterance in our house. And XChaggers. It's well worth playing through because despite its flaws, it has great gameplay and a fun story, and that's what it's all about.

But first what is this pack of lies in the store page blurb? Star Control 3 is the last installment of the series. Taking a slightly different track that diverged from the Star Control 2 formula, it got excellent reviews though some of the hardcore Star Control fans weren't entirely thrilled by the innovations. Journalists, new fans of the series, and hardcore fans alike all agreed on one thing, though: this game's story is great. GOG should be ashamed of themselves, this is so pack with lies it's almost fraud! Hello Falran! Once again the "third of a successful series" turns out to be a TURD and just makes sure there never will be a fourth. This is even worse an example than "Master of Orion 3"! The designers did try to stick to SC2's formula somewhat, and even tried adding a bit of more 4x type resource management and colony building to it all - but that was done SO weakly, you didn't actially control any of those things, you just dropped colony pods on planets for the various friendly races in the game. They did such a piss poor job of every single last aspect of everything in the game. They utterly warped all the familiar races beyond recognition, look at the Syreen now FGS! For me the killer was the star map. USELESS. Just a bunch of spinning grey dots. No info whatsoever attached to them. If you wanted a specific system you had to search through ALL of them with the mouse one by one by one by one....... truly HORRID. I could tolerate no more than a few hours before quitting. This could have been so much more but for the sheer incompetence of the designers who probably thought they were being so clever and were creating the "best gam eva"!

SC3 is well worth its name; it differs from SC3 as SC2 differs significantly from SC1. To me, the possible stories the protagonist told about in the end of game sequence of SC2 were the reason I was waiting eagerly for SC3. Alas, the sequel has nothing to do with that. Its main story line is impressive and well thought of, but no significant changes that could make a SC3 an outstanding game, a masterpieces that were SC2. Yet the SC3 by itself is a good game. You won't be too disappointed having played it. I especially like the mystery of Precursors (partially) disclosed. As well as the means used to handle the foe that looked omnipotent and invincible. A good game. Just don't compare it with other gems of this series. Just play it and enjoy.

Star Control 3 was one of my favorite games to play when I was younger. I've reinstalled it several times over the years, with varying degrees of success, but now I can finally play it all over again thanks to your fine website. Games like Star Control 3 are the reason why I'm a loyal gog.com customer.

Some say that just because this game wasn't made by the guys that did SC1 and 2, or that it isn't quite as good, doesn't mean it's terrible. That's true. It's achieves terrible all on it's own.