👍

like this game

👎

not a fan

BBC Micro (1985)

Sinclair Spectrum (1984)

Commodore 64 (1984)

Taking the controls of a stripped-down spaceship, you learn to trade goods and destroy enemy ships across star systems in a quest to raise your profile from harmless to elite.

There was always something a little bit extra special about Elite and that was even before the game had loaded. The container that my version (Amstrad) came in was not the standard plastic tape box with a shiny insert. It was a box that had to be big enough to contain the cassette, a space trader's flight manual, a short novel, a quick key control guide and a ship identification chart. The latter went straight onto my wall.

Speaking of 'novel', it's probably worth noting that many games were still adopting the widely accepted "three lives and you're out" approach. Elite was styled in such a way that you didn't play complacently, by giving you just the one precious, fragile life. Every moment of your campaign had to be spent checking to make sure that ships weren't flanking you in a surprise attack. You had only one chance to make it across the cosmos and, if it was a long journey, your concentration needed to be sharper than Don Johnson's suits.

You begin your quest at Lave space station with only 100 credits to your name and a Cobra Mk III ship with questionable firepower. Suffice it to say, you need some way of earning money to upgrade your ship for you to advance on to greater adventures.

Thankfully, you can gain extra credits through trading goods found on sale at each system you travel to, or you can take the bounty hunter route and get paid for getting rid of some unwanted vermin.

You can also go down the piracy route but, be warned, you'll have swarms of police in their Viper ships coming after you and, if it's not them, it'll be other bounty hunters looking to make a quick buck out of your demise.

This is an addictive and highly recommended game, with no real set pieces. All space flight provides a random set of circumstances every time so that you can never be totally prepared for any ships that come your way. This, along with the open-ended landscape, makes this game an absorbing and brilliantly constructed masterpiece.