The game of the 80s - Elite

[Barking_Mad]

Game of the 80's? Without doubt the best game ever when you consider what else was being churned out at the time. I used to have a BBC B+ 64k with a floppy drive and spent hours and hours playing it.

Some 8 years later at uni I still managed a good few months playing. Eve-online is very good, but my early playing was blighted by it crashing.

Ahh halcyon days......

 

[the B]

A modern elite-like game, which I prefer, is Escape Velocity - downloadable as shareware in various incarnations...the original, Override and Nova.

It comes with lots of total conversion or minor conversion plug-ins too

Not sure if it's Mac only though...

 

[past caring]

Never played elite.....

But did spend (waste) a large amount of time playing diaspora (a more basic Eve online)- it was fucking great - and free.

massive multiplayer - plenty of scope for politics/intrigue - but got fucked eventually 'cos the server was vulnerable and the developers stopped work on it (went with on-line casino type stuff instead)....

periodically I keep looking for something that's massive multiplayer, free and has the same scope for co-operation, intrigue and killing - but never come up with anything....

But flimsy's thread has reminded me of something I've been intending to post here for a while - a user review thread of games that others might have missed. I'd go for jagged Alliance 2 myself - still a top game though 5 years old now - but I still replay it and it's still getting moded.....

 

[cynical_bastard]

x2 is good, provided you cheat to give yourself a boost at the start

 

[flimsier]

 

[Kid_Eternity]

That's some impressive grave digging there flim!

 

[editor]

flimsier,

great though Elite was, the sequel Frontier is better, and is almost the complete game.

Frontier is the best game I've ever played.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Frontier is the best game I've ever played.

Tell me about it; me and a mate once spent days sitting up all night (many many cans of red bull!) playing it! Man...those were the days...

 

[skunkboy69]

I had it on the old spectrum.Used to have a weird protection code where you had to look at the screen with a bad quality plastic magnifying glass thingy.

 

[tommers]

I always thought that elite was better than frontier....

the combat in frontier was rubbish.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I once did an online interview with Ian Bell the co-author for Barrysworld (now defunct) Ill try and did the copy out on my computer when I get home.

Elite was groundbreaking, truly great game. And all in 32k.

 

[Psychonaut]

I completed both the BBC B & Archimedies (the best) versions - easy, especially when you realise your getting kill-credits for shooting asteroids....which you can buy, jettison and blast.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ian Bell thought the best version was the SNES I think I remember reading.

 

[Psychonaut]

Ian Bell thought the best version was the SNES I think I remember reading.

ArcElite came out very late - i loved the fan mythology, one of the Acorn mags had an Elite column running for years. Every single detail in the manual appears somewhere in the game except Space dredgers & generation ships. The authors finally confirmed that they dont exist, on any version and gave us all some closure

 

[Jo/Joe]

So is there a version of Eilte I can play on my PC? I've heard rumours of a newie. Twas ace.

 

[StuPC]

Can I recommend Francis Spufford's fantastic book, The Backroom Boys, which as well as all the other great stuff about the UK space program in the '50s also has a chapter on Elite...

 

[Final]

Elite was pretty good. Though I prefer human opponents for my strategy stuff, so would go for a PBEM space opera like Phoenix by KJC Games.

 

[BassJunkie]

I had it on the old spectrum.Used to have a weird protection code where you had to look at the screen with a bad quality plastic magnifying glass thingy.

Oh Fook me i remember those things, just tripped back 20 years!

 

[Xanadu]

i used to have a game with one of those! Think it was called tomahawk...

 

[ICB]

Elite... you can check at Home Of The Underdogs (I also suggest hardwar).

If it was available in other than Personal Computers, that can be arranged as well, since I know what platform.

hardwar is awesome, love it, anyone into this sort of game should get it and kill a few months

I had Elite for the BBC B, which was a great version on a great machine.

I was the first kid at my school to get to elite status, my technique was to equip military lasers front and back, launch, shoot the station a couple of times then just drift away from and back into the station caning all the police vipers that came out of it. Pretty quickly racks up the kills you need to get from deadly to elite and gives you a strangely satisfying feeling. Works on the early versions that don't allow dumping or have asteroids.

 

[jæd]

A modern elite-like game, which I prefer, is Escape Velocity - downloadable as shareware in various incarnations...the original, Override and Nova.

Excellent game... Well worth the registration fee...!

 

[kakuma]

i never got very far with it

i was only a nipper and i used to buy loads of contraband, fly out of the space station and attack stuff

never got bored tho

 

[StuPC]

That home of the underdogs site is brilliant, isn't it?!