Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon

Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon is the third game, and one of the most appreciated, in the Space Quest series. It was developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1989 for Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS.

This was the first game in the series where you could not choose your character’s name, it is just set to the default “Roger Wilco.” This was also the first installment to utilize digitized speech, though only for one sentence during the intro. The game uses the mouse for movement and interaction with the inventory, but the majority of actions are done through text commands.

Following the events of Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge ( I won’t spoil it for you) Roger’s escape pod is taking a leisurely drift through vast, endless space when it is picked up by a garbage freighter. Roger manages to find his way off the freighter, only to land himself in hot water elsewhere. He is being pursued by Arnoid the Annihilator (a nod to The Terminator) for failure to pay for a whistle. Those familiar with Space Quest II can tell you that the whistle was actually free so the pursuit of our hero is erroneous. Roger also happens upon an SOS from 2 Guys From Andromeda who are being forced to program games for Scummsoft. Which is run by the above named Pirates of Pestulon. The name 2 Guys From Andromeda is a reference to Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, the minds behind the Space Quest series. Heading out to Pestulon, a small moon of the planet Ortega, Mr. Wilco sets out to free the poor programmers from their dreary fate as corporate salves. Not bad for an ex-janitor.

Space Quest III, like the rest of the series, is comical and highly entertaining. It features multiple easter eggs to titillate true sci fi fanatics. It won several awards including Game of the Year and a Special Award for Achievement in Sound. It also won Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (you’ll see why) and was the #5 Adventure Game in 1990. This game is just straight up fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously, definitely worth checking out.