Space Quest III
| Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Sierra |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra |
| Designer(s) | Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy |
| Engine | SCI |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari ST |
| Release | 1989 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon was released on March 24th, 1989, and was developed using an early version of Sierra's SCI engine.
Plot
Template:Spoiler Roger Wilco's escape pod from the end of SQ2 is floating in space until captured by an automated garbage freighter. Roger's first task is to repair an old ship found there, the Aluminum Mallard (a play on the Millennium Falcon) and leave the scow. However he will meet some difficulties, as the Arnoid the Annihilator (an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like android terminator) hunts him for not paying for a whistle in SQII. He eventually discovers the sinister activities of a video game company known as ScumSoft (a parody of Microsoft and Sunsoft) run by the "Pirates of Pestulon".
Pestulon, a small moon of the volcanic planet Ortega, is covered in soft, moss-like vegetation, and dotted with twisted tree-like growths throughout. Elmo Pug, the CEO of ScumSoft, has abducted the Two Guys from Andromeda and is forcing them to design their awful games. Roger somehow gets inside the supposedly impregnable ScumSoft offices and rescues the two programmers. In the process, Roger must fight the Bill Gates-like Elmo in a game that combines giant Mecha-style combat with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
Technical details
SQ3 featured music composed by Supertramp drummer Bob Siebenberg, and was one of the first games to support the new SoundBlaster sound card. PC versions of the game now supported mouse movement and a new, heavily improved text parser. The title of the game is an obvious pun on The Pirates of Penzance.
SQ III also featured a mini-game called Astro Chicken, which was not necessary to complete the game, but getting a high score revealed a hidden distress message that the Two Guys had programmed in. A variation on a folk song known as the Chicken reel was used as the Astro Chicken theme music in this and subsequent games.
Easter eggs
- On the garbage freighter there is a section containing a crashed TIE fighter from Star Wars, An ACME rocket (From the Warner Brothers "Road Runner" series) and an alien saucer with Jupiter 2 (from Lost in Space) written on the front of it.