Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon

(Sierra On-Line, 1989)

While not as inspired as the prior two space quests, The Sarien Encounter and Vohaul's Revenge, this was an amusing sequel on several additional levels. Most noteworthy was its use of sound; one of the first games ever designed to use sound cards (which were in their infancy on IBM PCs at the time). The resulting music, in particular, was fantastic, particularly the forboding intro music, as Wilco's escape pod is pulled via tractor beam into a space garbage vessel (your first puzzle quest is to escape this ship). The evolving story was only so-so, though the sound effects were even better than most games made to this very day, leading to a "solid" thumbs-up rating...

Rating : Large Crater.

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