“You get the ladder and put it in your pocket.
Ouch.”
—Narrator, aboard Junk Freighter

Ah, classic adventure
games. What would we do without them? Most likely, we’d be forced to play newer
games that have superior “shiny” graphics and sound but are made with
a dash of Plot Lite® (five times the length, a fifth of the plot) and blended
with a slathering of Aunt Sarah’s Maple Syrup (don’t ask, please). Well, Space
Quest 3: The Pirates of Pestulon offers an entertaining and exciting, if (extremely)
brief, adventure through the comedic sci-fi universe that is Space Quest …

Space
Quest 3 takes place after our janitor-turned-hero Roger Wilco escaped from
the asteroid fortress in Space Quest 2. Floating in an escape pod for an
unknown amount of time, Roger wakes up in a garbage freighter. After he escapes
using his sheer intellect (and a healthy slice of luck), he becomes aware of a
kidnaping plot by mega-software company ScumSoft (gee, I wonder what company that’s
making fun of?) to snatch the designers of his favorite arcade game Astro Chicken.
Being a space janitor-turned-hero and all, he powers up the warp drive on his
ship, the Aluminum Mallard, and begins a quest to rescue two programmers from
the clutch of evil mega-capitalists.

That said and done, Space Quest
3 is pretty darn funny. There never is a boring moment. Intelligent inventory-based
puzzles are the majority of the head-scratchers that Roger will face, but there
are also a few mini-games including Astro Chicken (sort of like Lunar Lander but
with chickens …) and Nukem Dukem Robots (I never thought it would’ve been
possible to do a parody of Duke Nukem and Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots at the same
time). A few logical puzzles also inhabit the game. Some puzzles in Space Quest
3 are especially notable because there’s more than one way to solve them.
Who needs linearity? The only downside to the story and puzzles of Space Quest
3 is that it’s way too short. An experienced adventurer can expect to finish
it in less than four hours.

Space Quest 3 was programmed in Sierra’s
SCI0. But that doesn’t mean it has full mouse control. The mouse can be used to
move Roger (this comes in handy, especially in the mini-games), but so can the
keyboard, and since all commands are entered via a text parser, you’ll probably
rarely touch the mouse. The text parser in Space Quest 3 (and in all SCI0
games) is a huge improvement over the previous AGI Space Quests–when you
type in something, the game actually pauses, so there’ll be no more bleeding
fingers from advanced stages of the carpal-tunnel syndrome. Though some (more
recent) adventurers may not like the idea of a text parser, you’ll never truly
admire the genre until you try a good parser game, and this certainly is one of
them.

Space Quest 3 was released in 1989, so the graphics are obviously
dated (and by dated I mean they’re having a pixel party). Though some cutscenes
are well-detailed, the majority of the game is quite blockish. That said, the
graphics are stunning for the time period. Compared to the previous AGI Space
Quests (and even the SCI0 Kings Quest IV), the graphics are beautiful.
The artists created a wonderful backwater ambiance for the game. The junk freighter
in the beginning contains broken-down ships from about every sci-fi series in
existence (the pod from 2001, the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space).
The Monolith Burger is a hilarious parody of American fast-food joints. I certainly
wasn’t disappointed by the graphics in Space Quest 3.

And don’t you
worry about the sound. Space Quest 3 has a rockin’ soundtrack (well, as
rockin’ as general MIDI can get, which I guess isn’t very rockin’ …). Gone
are the internal PC speaker soundtracks of yesteryear–here is GMIDI, in all its
glory (well, since I’m writing this in the year 2000, I’m gonna have to do a little
scoff … MIDI was pretty lame). If you have a Sound Blaster (or compatible) card,
you’ll be able to enjoy the opening remix of the Space Quest theme and
some really excellent mood music. From the cheesy music of Monolith Burger to
the remote (um, red-necked) music of Phleebhut, the music directors truly did
a bang-up job, especially considering the medium they were using.

Simply
said, Space Quest 3 is a textbook example of what a “classic adventure
game” is (and by textbook, I mean “Adam’s Book of Stuff,” to be
published sometime in the near future). Great plot, decent graphics (even today),
and a jammin’ soundtrack make this an excellent, if short, game that all adventurers
should play, especially if you’re a fan of science fiction or parody.

Final
Grade: A-

If you liked Space Quest 3: The Pirates of Pestulon:
Watch:
Spaceballs
Play: Space Quest 5
Read: The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Plot
Lite a registered trademark of ScumSoft Inc. “Adam’s Book of Stuff”
has a tentative publishing date of 2012, to be published right after he conquers
the world.

System Requirements:
DOS
6.0+
386
8 MB free HD space
Sound card
Pointing device