It's the kind of game where you can see why there was no _Star Control 4_. In the endless quest to 'improve' the game, they dropped parts that had worked in previous versions, added new parts, and generally fiddled with a formula that worked (this same attitude also produced the much maligned _Civilization: Call to Power_.
There's also the "Well, what do you do NOW?" problem. In _Star Control_, you're simply leading the Alliance of Free Stars against the evil empire of the Ur-Quan and their Heirarchy of Battle Thralls. In _Star Control 2_, the Alliance must be rebuilt to once more take on the Ur-Quan, and their eviller twin brothers, the Kohr-Ah, which involves running around the universe gathering allies, smacking some sense into Heirarchy forces, and generally being a meddling little hunam. Er, human.
In _Star Control 3_, you've whipped up on the Ur-Quan and the Kohr-Ah... so what do you do for an encore? You try to stop the Elder Gods at the center of the galaxy from draining the life force of every sentient being in existance. And you find the Precursors have been hiding out in plain sight all over the universe as... cows! Moo. While quick, and entertaining (your character gets increasingly surly as the adventure drags on. It's one of those games where in conversations you can pick between various responses, and you eventually get to the point where you're able to snap "Cripes! ANOTHER test? What pointless crap do I have to do THIS time to convince you I'm worthy?" when yet another alien race gets snippy about 'young whippersnapper hunams'. Plus you get your hands on the True Name of the Elder Gods, which tends to make one of the surlier enemy races detonate when they try to process it. ("Exclamation! NOW I SEE! Now... I... know..." *K-boom*)
And then there's the occasional chance to say "Oh, great. You're not going to tell me anything useful, are you. You're just going to be cryptic and then go away again. Look, you DO know I can just nuke you from orbit, right?"
Any game where you can threaten to nuke people from orbit can't be all bad.
The problems, though, come in the fact that it mostly involves lots of flying around exploring rather drab star systems, placating your snippy allies and picking up endless Precursor widgets. And fighting battles that, because of your vast collection of Precursor widgets, aren't all that challenging. The final series of battles (in which you whomp on, in sequence, a badass Precursor ship, a fleet of surly Elder God sympathizers, a fleet of even surlier Elder God sympathizers (who arrive with their own movie file of an fhuge fleet warping out, accompanied by heavy metal riffs)) was almost trivial. You generally expect such major bad-asses to cause more casualties than a couple of blown up disposable extra ships. You beat the Heralds of the Elder Gods so badly it's almost embarassing. These guys are actually supposed to be a challenge? Maybe if the programmers of the games had thought to make their 'cloaking devices' actually work in this one, as opposed to overlaying the enemy ship with a dark grey to hide them, but which still sticks out like a sore thumb against the blackness of space.
But we digress.
Tomorrow, we discuss the mind-sucking horror that is Windows CE.
Migh-tee!
Goku stands there, the planet disintigrating around him, as Frieza's torso drifts in the air behind him (Frieza apparently having gotten enough energy from Goku to fly). Frieza mocks Goku's monkey nature some more, as well as pointing out that Goku will never make it to his own ship, and Frieza's ship was punched full of holes by Vegeta. Goku smirks at Frieza and tells the villain to go float out in space a bit, it'll give him time to think about his naughty deeds.
As Goku flies off, Frieza engages in a long, pointless flashback sequence recapping the battle from the point which Goku appeared.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, all is happy, fun and light, but Guru is dying. Again. Frieza may have caused Guru to die a little early, but the Namek leader was still dying. All the Nameks gather round, sadly... well, until they realize they're missing a few Nameks. This baffles everyone, until Vegeta explains they're probably the ones he killed. Sucks to be them.
A bit more growling, then back to Guru. Everyone stands around being sad, although Dende takes a moment to point some things out to Gohan, namely that the Namek Dragonballs, which have followed the group to Earth, can bring people back from the dead more than once. Thus can Krillan and Chou-tzu be restored. The mini-Namek also confirms his suspicion that Naihl and Piccolo had fused to fight Frieza.
Guru hangs around long enough to pass on the Dragonballs to the next oldest Namek, who then becomes the leader, as Guru (literally) fades out of the picture. The Nameks, though saddened by the loss of their leader and, Namek reproduction being what it is, father, all get revved up to rebuild anew in some place. Gohan engages in another flashback about how Guru helped him realize more of his true potential.
Meanwhile, back on Namek itself, Frieza goes into another 'I am INVINCIBLE!' rant, spending the energy that Goku gave him in yet another attack. Well, that's about all that Goku's willing to put up with, and he (apparently) annihilates Frieza with his counter-attack.
Okay, so none of us REALLY believe that Frieza is dead permanently, but at last, at long last, the fight scene is OVER! YAAAAAAY!
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