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ELITE The game that redefined 80s games

I was just a bit too young to be around for Elite in its heyday, but I did spend a lot of time on the sequel.
 
I was just a bit too young to be around for Elite in its heyday, but I did spend a lot of time on the sequel.

I loved Elite as a kid (though the MIDI version of Blue Danube gets a bit annoying after a while) but tried Elite: Dangerous when that came out and found it too annoying - I always bought an auto-docker in the original but I could dock manually just about... in Dangerous? Forget it. The controls switch from spaceflight to dock mode and I lose all ability to tell WTF I'm telling the ship to do (other than crash).

I also liked that Elite came with a (not brilliant but not crap) novella detailing a young pilot getting his first, very basic ship (the same one the game gives you at the start) and explaining the setting, so you felt a bit more of a character yourself rather than just being shoved into a ship and flying about.
 
I loved Elite as a kid (though the MIDI version of Blue Danube gets a bit annoying after a while) but tried Elite: Dangerous when that came out and found it too annoying - I always bought an auto-docker in the original but I could dock manually just about... in Dangerous? Forget it. The controls switch from spaceflight to dock mode and I lose all ability to tell WTF I'm telling the ship to do (other than crash).

I also liked that Elite came with a (not brilliant but not crap) novella detailing a young pilot getting his first, very basic ship (the same one the game gives you at the start) and explaining the setting, so you felt a bit more of a character yourself rather than just being shoved into a ship and flying about.

What blew me away back then though was that they managed all this in such a tiny memory space
 
I played this on my Apple ][ (plus, I think). I cannot imagine trying to play this with a digital joystick like my Commodore 64 fellows did.

Still arguably the best 3D situation display.

I've since played Elite Frontier (which might actually be my favorite) and of course I dabble with Elite Dangerous. (I'm hopeless at combat.)
 
I had countless hours on the 464 version, into the hundreds, then one day while loading the game the tape got caught in the machine and it was all gone...............almost 40 years later i still remember frantically trying to rewind all the chewed up tape back in with a pencil.....it is a day that will live in infamy. .....infamy........they all got it infamy. Ha
 
I had countless hours on the 464 version, into the hundreds, then one day while loading the game the tape got caught in the machine and it was all gone...............almost 40 years later i still remember frantically trying to rewind all the chewed up tape back in with a pencil.....it is a day that will live in infamy. .....infamy........they all got it infamy. Ha


664 here with its giant keyboard and tape player via a cord. I loved that machine to bits and had it for years before getting a PC in 1997
 
Like "Rise of the Dragon", I'd played this one for hours on end too...

Back in my Amiga 500 days, Elite II was an engaging marvel. "Accelerators" were so cool, though I never got a chance to buy one and Elite Frontier II would have benefitted. Am not saying it's not unplayable, look at Flight Simulator II on the Apple II or Atari XEGS back then - it's slower.
I'm amazed they made the original Elite for the NES, using careful timing to make arrays of tile graphics appear as vector graphics. But that was PAL/Europe, I don't recall the US got a release.

They used procedural generating or something to that effect, which gave the impression of a far larger universe... the last time I recall anything procedurally-generated was the soundtrack to Atari 800's "Ballblazer" (the first game using antialiasing edge smoothing too).
 
I spent hours playing Spindizzy and Ballblazer on the computers we had.

I would haved loved it to bits if those ever got a PC port one day
 
I loved Elite as a kid (though the MIDI version of Blue Danube gets a bit annoying after a while) but tried Elite: Dangerous when that came out and found it too annoying - I always bought an auto-docker in the original but I could dock manually just about... in Dangerous? Forget it. The controls switch from spaceflight to dock mode and I lose all ability to tell WTF I'm telling the ship to do (other than crash).

I also liked that Elite came with a (not brilliant but not crap) novella detailing a young pilot getting his first, very basic ship (the same one the game gives you at the start) and explaining the setting, so you felt a bit more of a character yourself rather than just being shoved into a ship and flying about.

I feel you, i never could dock well in the original game and too often destroyed my ship. Fortunately i found a "hack" in a gaming magazine back in the day where you would use an ASCII editor to change tiny things to give you unlimited funds and/or equipment. I just gave myself enough money for the docking computer to get that out of the way so that i could enjoy the game.

Elite Dangerous was/is awesome but it's just such a timesink and i occasionally check back where it's going. Seems like the game is currently fighting a war against the Thargoids and it's full on madness in there.

ED actually made me buy a decent HOTAS setup and once i set up the million buttons to my preference it was actually extremely cool to control my ship with a twitch of my finger here and the press of a button there. Docking actually became fun as it was much easier than in the original game and with my setup could feel a bit rogueish by barreling into a station and aggressively landing on my spot only reducing power at the last moment to avoid crashing my ship. Felt a bit like Han Solo, not gonna lie :lol:

I'm amazed that this game has gone through so many expansions and DLCs to be where Star Citizen always wants to go but never does, the quintessential vaporware whereas Elite Dangerous has Space Trading, Combat, Landing and Driving on Planets, a First Person mode including combat etc.
 
ED with the oculus CV1 was just something else, as in Vr this game really is stunning, just amazing, going into hyperspace never failed to awe no matter how many times you did it.........and i did no fighting ever in the game as that aspect of it never appealed to me, as all i ever did for 5 years was delivery missions, and i got so good at manual landing anywhere on anything that i am sure i could land on a stamp floating on the ocean during a storm. lol

Great game that i wish it had come to the PS4 pro or the PS5 with PSVR support as the PSVR 1 has oled display with clear flat lenses, so it would have looked just amazing on it.:(
 
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