FROM space it came. Carried by the solar wind, the escape capsule bearing the seemingly lifeless body, drifted across the space lanes until it halted, gripped in the searing light of a powerful tractor beam.
Hauled from the void and tipped unceremoniously on to a pile of garbage within a vast ship, you awaken to find the fate of the galaxy is once more in your hands. Roger Wilco - space hero - has returned.

Elmo Pugg, the evil owner of Scumsoft Software,has scandalised games players throughout the known worlds by kidnapping the two writers of the fabulous Astro-Chicken video game and imprisoned them in his secret lair.
You must find some way to build a working ship from the piles of junk which surround you, fly to the nearby worlds, search for clues and finally rescue the "Two Guys from Andromeda". And it's nearly tea-time already!

Speaking of food, don't forget to stop at Monolith Burgers, the last fast-food parlour before you hit the Milky Way. Monsters from all over the galaxy will be queuing there to pick up a Whoppa-Burger and fries - with added grease.
Your new ship is fitted with the latest laser guns and defensive shields. Your navigation system is fired up and ready to go. There's lots to do and see out there, so let's get the lead out and make tracks for the nearest planet.

This eagerly awaited addition to the Space Quest series is all that game players could wish for. Artists from the world of TV cartoon animation have been assembled to create Sierra's most lavish graphic adventure so far.
Combined with super music and realistic sound effects, Space Quest III is a feast for both eyes and ears. Lucky owners of the Roland sound module will be able to enjoy even more sophisticated music which the game is capable of producing.

In addition to finding lots of silly objects to help you solve the puzzles - fancy some temperature-controlled boxer shorts? - you must also play a few arcade sequences.
There is a space battle to be fought with pirate ships, a boxing match in which you control a giant robot, plus the opportunity to play Astro-Chicken itself. Visit the Fun-World on planet Phleebut and play Hopscorch across the lava flows on a volcanic moon.

Just in case you thought things were difficult enough, you'll soon discover that you have an additional problem in the shape of an 8ft android. Seems like someone has put a price on your head, and this deadly Terminator intends to collect it the hard way.
He is bigger than you. He can run faster and hit harder than you. And just to make things really interesting, he can make himself invisible.

This is both the funniest and easiest of the Quest games and I defy anyone not to enjoy it. If, like me, you enjoy adventures but never seem to be able to finish one, this this is the game you have been waiting for. Even dying is fun because the game has the witty last word every time.

Come the end of October, Roger Wilco will be back in action again, with the Amiga release of Sierra's Space Quest III. After his recent brush with Sludge Vohaul, Roger manages to cobble together a spacecraft from bits and pieces in the space breakers' yard and is soon heading light speed for the planet Phleebhut.

A desert planet of sand and rock, Pleebhut is a tourist attraction in the form of a giant statue, if only you can reach it. Nestling between its huge feet is the World 'o Wonders gift shop, run by a sleazy blue alien who drives a hard bargain. Try to sell him something, and the game enters 'Haggle Mode'; you'll need to pitch your price about right to keep up his interest until you can extract enough cash for your needs.

And cash you will surely need, for you're bound to want to stop off at the Monolith Burger Bar - a space station in the form of a giant hamburger - a sort of Happy Eater for hungry light-speed travellers. Her you can get refreshment that can only loosely be termed 'food', a disappointment made up only by a game or two on the wackiest arcade machine ever: Astro Chicken!

Not an easy game mind you, you have to soft-land a plummeting chicken on a landing pad, controlling the degree of its wing flapping to vary speed and direction of plummet. And the control keys do some fairly wild things!

By the time this innocent little diversion has been successfully concluded, you'll have discovered that the two guys from Andromeda are in trouble, and that you must penetrate the not-inconsiderable defences of Pestulon to rescue them from the clutches of Scumsoft. So next it's off in search of the source of those defences and to render them useless, across some very tricky, unstable rock formations that are likely to fall away from under you, on yet another planet.

Once on Pestulon, your earlier brush with The Terminator (who is under orders to rub you out for non-payment for a whistle in Space Quest II) will have proved his worth, for it should have yielded the means for penetrating into the very heart of the Scumsoft empire. Before long, disguised as a janitor, you are negotiating a maze of cost-effective accountants, in a bid to reach the two imprisoned guys.

By now you are nearing a stupendous climax featuring a gladiatorial contest of Battle Mechs, a spectacular shoot 'em up in space, as you attempt to escape Pestulon with the two guys.

Here's a game with plenty of excitement, and humour too. If you enjoyed SQ1 and SQ2, then you'll love SQ3. It's undoubtedly the best Space Quest yet.

Once again Roger Wilco inadvertently finds himself in the thick of things. Follwing his gnat's-whisker escape from Vohaul's asteroid he's been enjoying a restful kip within the sleep tank of an escape pod which currently drifts aimlessly through the vast emptiness of a cold, black space. Empty that is save for a huge junk freighter which catches sight of Roger's pod (not a pretty sight) and believing it to be space junk, beams it onboard to let it rust amid the decaying shells of other unfortunate machines. Roger slowly comes to his senses (difficult for a guy like him) and leaves the now-defunct pod to explore this space-age rag and bone cart in the hope of finding a way out.

The first thing he finds is a warp motivator which looks jolly useful but is too heavy to manoeuvre. A wider exploration reveals the head of a giant robot with one eye missing, an array of old space ships (including a TIE Fighter) and a vertical conveyor belt. Travelling upwards on the belt is no big deal but getting off it before it throws you into a bone-crunching masher is another matter.

Safely negotiating the masher, you come across a machine, complete with magnetic grabber, used to collect junk from the area from which you've just ascended. Playing around with this machine is not only fun but also essential to your escape.

Eventually - should you successfully avoid being mugged by the mutant rats - you find a ship in reasonable condition, repair it and blast your way out of the junk freighter.

During subsequent space travels you discover that two famous programmers have been captured and are being forced to work for the dastardly company, Scum Soft. As you're a hero born and bred, you can't help but take up the challenge of rescuing them.

Employing keys and/or mouse, you steer a strutting Roger through a 3-D environment, using text inputs to get him to carry out specific tasks. Animation of Roger and all other characters is effective, considering the size and complexity of the game, and detail in background (and foreground) graphics is very good. FX are an improvement on earlier Sierra games (they couldn't get much worse actually) and music, when it kicks in, is suitably jolly.

At £34.99 it's not everybody who can afford Sierra (little car joke there) games, especially when - without wishing to brag... much - it's possible to complete one in approximately seven hours (give or take a couple for disk accessing). Making the cost of playing SQ3 about five pounds an hour.

However, even though the ending is less than enthralling, I regard it as well worth the buckazoids, 'cause it's incredibly enjoyable to play, and there's more than one solution, so in a couple of years you can play it again, in a different way.