Difference between revisions of "Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon"

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===Good===
 
===Good===
 
* There are several laugh-out-loud jokes through the game, and plenty of chuckles. These are not just from the writing, but also from the various sci-fi films that are satirized.
 
* There are several laugh-out-loud jokes through the game, and plenty of chuckles. These are not just from the writing, but also from the various sci-fi films that are satirized.
* The EGA graphics are were really impressive for the time, and hold up well. The backgrounds are highly detailed and the sprite animations are well-drawn, and the death graphics are really funny.
+
* The EGA graphics are were really impressive for the time, and hold up well. The backgrounds are highly detailed and the sprite animations are well-drawn, and the death graphics are really funny. The lighting effects on Roger are also a nice addition.
 
* The music is pretty great too for the time, and more than passable decades later.
 
* The music is pretty great too for the time, and more than passable decades later.
  

Revision as of 12:33, 12 January 2021

DOS cover.

Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon is a comedic graphic adventure puzzle video game developed and published by Sierra On-Line on 1989-03-24 initially for MS-DOS, and later for Amiga, Atari ST, and Macintosh. It is the third game in the Space Quest series and the first to use the Sierra Creative Interpreter version 0. The game was primarily designed by Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy who go by the moniker "Two Guys from Andromeda."

The game's plot takes place following the end of the second game. Hero Roger Wilco awakens to find himself trapped on a junk barge owned by androids who don't care much for organic organisms.

Personal

Although I very much enjoyed the first two Space Quest games, I had little desire to continue to series. However, my friend Beau encouraged me to play the third game saying it was both easy and short. So, I started playing it and ended up beating it the next day on 2021-01-11, needing two hints, with a score of 698 out of 738.

Status

I own this game in a Steam collection and have beaten it.

Review

Video Game Review Icon - Enjoyment.png Video Game Review Icon - Control.png Video Game Review Icon - Appearance.png Video Game Review Icon - Sound.png Video Game Review Icon - Replayability.png
0 0 0 0 0

Best Version: MS-DOS

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • There are several laugh-out-loud jokes through the game, and plenty of chuckles. These are not just from the writing, but also from the various sci-fi films that are satirized.
  • The EGA graphics are were really impressive for the time, and hold up well. The backgrounds are highly detailed and the sprite animations are well-drawn, and the death graphics are really funny. The lighting effects on Roger are also a nice addition.
  • The music is pretty great too for the time, and more than passable decades later.

Bad

  • The plot, the Two Guys from Andromeda have been kidnapped by a terrible game company and forced to make games, is not only self-serving and ill-fitting, but it also doesn't work. Roger doesn't have the slightest idea who they are and has plenty of his own problems, so what motivates him to risk his life to save them? The ending really expands on the absurdity of it all.
  • The joke about your sentence being just too well-crafted for the game to understand was hilarious the first time I read it, but, by making it the only response for an unexpected input, I very quickly became annoyed with it as I struggled with the limited parser.
  • The long delays with the claw puzzle make it annoying to get the item you're reaching for, and even more annoying when you're trying to deliver it.
  • The "puzzle" with the rat thief was disappointing. I wasted a lot of time trying to come up with a way to actually prevent the rat from robbing me, only to find that you just do the same thing twice and get a different outcome to "solve" it.
  • Most of the rooms on Phleebhut and Ortega are either completely empty with contain only a very basic hazard to avoid. This leaves the game with a rather unfinished feel to it.
  • I don't like how the invisibility belt can't be used to bypass the pirates. It's nice that they designers prevent you from entering an unwinnable state later in the game, but it doesn't make sense. They should have come up with a better way to prevent you from using it too soon, or given you an alternate route later.
  • The rotating hallway in the offices of Scumsoft looks nice, but it's a pain to navigate as the bumbling Roger smacks into the walls.
  • The maze in the accounting department of Scumsoft is not fun. Once you figure out what you need to do, it just becomes a tedious exercise in save scumming.
  • The Nukem Dukem robot battle was far too easy.
  • The game is a bit too short and too easy. I finished it in only a couple of hours, and I felt like most of the difficulties I had with the game was from struggling with the limited parser. There is a fourth wall-breaking joke near the end of the game where you're asked if you feel the cost of $59.95 is justified, and I'd have to say, no, it wasn't.
  • The hint book tries to be funny, but the jokes are especially lame.

Ugly

  • The Astro Chicken game is not only a cheap rip-off of Lunar Lander, but features bad controls and terrible music. I know this was meant to be an in-game joke since it was supposed to be made by a terrible video game company, but there is satire, and then there is just laziness. To top it all off, playing the game isn't necessary to beat SQ3, and doesn't really help you either!

Media

Box Art

Documentation

Videos

"At the Cinematron" promotional video.
Sierra Online 1988 video catalog.
Ways to die.
Debug modes.
Longplay - Amiga.
Longplay - Atari ST.
Longplay - MS-DOS.

Links

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