Elite (1991, Acorn Archimedes)

Name:Elite
Number:267
Year:1991
Publisher:Hybrid Technology
Developer:Hybrid Technology
Genre:Space Simulation
Systems:Acorn Archimedes
Country of Origin:UK
Difficulty:5/5
Time:8 hours 10 minutes
Won:No (118W/92L)

The original space trading simulation, at least as far as British audiences are concerned, on the best possible system for it. A large, technical marvel which has eight galaxies to explore each with a couple hundred planets. A whole universe for one to play around in, just as soon as you can figure out how to dock with a space station.

Elite is one of the legendary '80s games, so popular within a certain section of the industry that its influence can be felt outside any genre it touches. A game so popular at the time, that one copy of it was sold for every BBC Micro, an impression task considering that the system was intended to be a classroom computer, and it really isn't that educational. And I still don't like it after trying to actually make it work.

Take away every important factor about the game and what are you left with? A space simulation that doesn't work like any other space simulation in a significant number of respects, and with gameplay depth that really doesn't warrant going past those. There are what, two, maybe three other games that use the same control systems this does? The freeware remake of this, and two of the sequels. I'm assuming that Elite: Dangerous is using a different control system.

In contrast to just about every space sim I've played, left and right don't turn left or right, they rotate left or right. This makes it so that you really only move when you go up or down, with your rotation determining which direction is up or down. There are a lot of games which also have rotation, but the difference is that these usually also have turning or they're halfway between rotation and turning. That this is the only thing I can do is where the objection lies.

The thing about space flight in comparison to ground flight is that there really isn't anything like aerodynamics to worry about. Space ships will keep moving until something stops their speed, barring sci-fi technologies like FTL drives. It makes sense that ships would have small engines to adjust their rotation, because otherwise they could come into a space station upside down. But it also makes sense that they would have the ability to go left or right, since that makes space flight easier.

Elite doesn't do rotation for any realistic reason. It's still as arcade-styled as any other space sim of the era. Your speed is not tied to anything real, it's tied to how fast your engine is going. Turn your engine down and you go slower. It's doing it so that it can add in a tricky situation where you dock with a rotating space station.

Docking with the space station is arguably the game's greatest challenge. You have to match your ship's rotation to the hanger just as you enter it. For many, this is where they quit. After several hours of sometimes making it in, I have to say that the quality of this is overhyped. Yes, it's challenging, but that's because you can only rotate and go up or down. It doesn't really work with the player's view, instead the player's view seems to be slightly above the point he needs to enter the hanger.

And honestly? This hides that the rest of the game really doesn't have that much going for it. Yes, there might have been something to the combat in 1984, but, as much as I hate to say it, it isn't really doing anything over any popular later space sim. At no point was I really able to use much strategy. If I could run away it was because someone wasn't chasing me. Otherwise, I would just do my trip from the jump point to the space station, chasing after any hostiles that shot first. Yes, I could shoot someone chasing me...but do you want to try that with reversed controls for this game?

Of course, there might be weapons I'm missing since I didn't cheat to get any of that. I got fuel scoops, a docking computer and more powerful lasers. Of these, I noticed that the fuel scoops were most useful, since they could pick up discarded cargo. Could, since more often than not I crashed into what I was trying to grab. Yeah, turns out even when you're chasing after an object heading in one direction at a set speed that trying to catch it can be tricky. It also catches fuel when you go near the sun. If you don't want to pay 2 credits and want to go through like ten minutes and five groups of enemies.

I should also point out that there's illegal cargo in this game, which if you buy or sell, causes you to become a criminal. I also never found the cargo jettison function, if there is one, which means that if you pick up narcotics with your fuel scoops, I hope you enjoy becoming the space police's most wanted or keeping it in your cargo hold forever.

This sort of leads into the problem with Elite, it's impressive what it can do, but it often feels like it's missing something important. Yes, it's very cool that there are eight galaxies with 256 planets each, but every planet of the same type is much the same as every other planet of the same type. There is nothing special about any random planet in the universe. There is at most, a handful of missions that involve a particular planet, which you need to destroy a lot of ships to reach.

And this is the expanded version, which is supposed to be the best of all possible Elite versions. I'm not sure the exact list of improvements, but better graphics, missions and are the noticeable aspects. The AI most noticeable of all. I'm not actually sure how smart it is, but the game, in comparison to how it was before and likely a number of its 1991 contemporaries, has a lot of ships at one time.

The breadth of the types of ships you can encounter is something that seems wasted here. Sometimes there are singular ships flying by as you make your trip to the space station. They fly by and nothing happens. Sometimes there's a ship destroying asteroids. Other times, there are large groups of ships. Usually pirates, but shooting first might result in you accidentally killing a group of unaligned traders. Hope you enjoy getting shot by the space police.

But none of these ships really matter that much in the here and now. Sure, there are probably a thousand different configurations going on, but if the two of you pass by, does it really matter? Does it matter what configuration a pirate ship has? If it's one or a half a dozen, it's not like they're going to have a radically different setup. I never had an enemy use ECM measures against my missiles. Of course, I rarely got them off, but someone should have had it.

The real problem with combat is that halfway through a battle, it's entirely possible for a second group of pirates to come in, decide that you and you alone should be killed. In theory, you can also come across a group of space police coming in at the last minute or a battle between pirates and the space police. It's a nice touch, even if it always results in me dying. It was the one time the game actually felt alive rather than me doing a bunch of stuff I was allowed to. 

I have really been overselling how much this game has going on, because most of the time, nothing is. You leave one space station, select a destination star, usually which has favorable prices on a trade good you just picked up, travel to the jump point, and then take a five minute trip to that space station, where you'll dock. If you can that is. There are maybe three encounters on this trip, and while frequently there will be one pirate encounter, it isn't a guarantee.

Instead, this is basically an excuse to sit back, and listen to music. The sound mixing is going to be crap unless you listen to classical. I mean, you could listen to Creeper or something, but "pop" music, in the non-classical sense, is mixed so that you'll never hear the sounds of the game over it. (Anything that involves spoken word is going to be tricky, the second something interesting happens, you'll be ignoring it) Classical just works better with it, and I'm not just saying that because I needed an excuse to listen to some.

While I never realized it at the time, most of what I was actually doing was...space trucking. I was a space trucker. You know, like a less glamorous version of the people from Alien...and without the interesting things happening to them. I'm just a dude transporting furs to one planet and computers to the other for a small bit of profit, listening to the radio so I don't nod off.

In that sense, I could recommend it...Except that this week, I didn't have power for a while. This would normally not be relevant, except that the part that was the most interesting, flying between stars while listening to classical, can be done a number of other ways. Like sitting in the dark, listening to a classical station because you don't have any other option. Actually, I'd recommend it, because something about it feels more powerful in that situation.

Which means that the most interesting part of this game...kind of is completely outclassed by just turning off all your lights and then listening to music without any distractions. Pirates probably aren't going to break into your house halfway through a piano concerto. The space police aren't going to be upset with you for listening to a small piece of a Wagner opera.

There are a lot of systems in this game which I feel like I've only scratched the surface of, but they weren't that important in the eight hours I played of the game. That leaves space trucking and pirate hunting, which you do just to do because there's barely anything else to do in the game. So many things about the game are clever...and yet none of it truly matters when there's a whole lot of nothing out there to do beyond it.

Weapons:
Lasers you can install forward, backward and sideways, along with missiles and possibly other things which are too expensive and clunky to use in the heat of most battles. 2

Enemies:
A decent variety, albeit because of the mechanics of the way the game works, are hard to distinguish between one and another, outside of obvious outliers like aliens. 3

Non-Enemies:
An impressive array, even if it seemed like the only ones I ever encountered were either people I passed by or those who soon became enemies. 3

Levels:
Eight galaxies of a lot of stars of some limited number of types. They're not very interesting. 1

Player Agency:
The controls were a bit too loose for me. It felt like a struggle to just right my ship, let alone chase after someone. Of course, being an Archimedes title, the mouse and its three buttons are used to the fullest, but I did get used to adjusting speed with the mouse buttons. Launching a missile feels too involved. 3

Interactivity:
If you have the right attachment and ram the right things, you get stuff. If you don't, you crash. 0

Atmosphere:
Nothing quite like being a space trucker in the absolute emptiness that is space. This must be the Total Perspective Vortex I've heard so much about. 3

Graphics:
Filled polygon 3D. Crude, but often there are clever effects going on, like suns doing that line thing, and planets having dots move across them. You can actually feel the 3D space with it. 3

Story:
There was a novella distributed with the game, but this is just flavor. Arguably, this did a lot to enhance the game's mystique and by not reading it, I've ruined the game. 0

Sound/Music:
Useful, but not particularly memorable. No music, but considering this has a reasonable playtime of a hundred hours, this is appreciated. 3

That's 21. Not particularly special for 1991, but pretty high up for 1984.

Yes, there was something to this and what it did was incredible, especially on a system which wasn't that powerful, but there's not really that much to it beyond the surface level. Yes, there are missions and eventually you can get to some huge ranking by killing a ton of pirates, but man, there's not a lot to fill that massive amount of time you'll spend getting to those points. It doesn't matter how clever you make a game if there isn't that much going on in the short term.many clever little touches you add if there's not that much to actually do.

I'm slightly altering up my plans going forward. A lot of vehicle simulations, basically all from this time, are nearly indistinguishable from a FPS game, so I've decided to add a focus on those. Which means we're about...60 games away from finishing the early '90s FPS part of the program. Depending on how these feel, I may just take these as an alternative to playing whatever I have left from 1984. Next time though, Star Cruiser on Sharp X68000, or whichever release has the English translation.

'Allo 'Allo - Cartoon Fun (1993)

Name:'Allo 'Allo! Cartoon Fun
Number:268
Year:1993
Publisher:Alternative Software
Developer:Alternative Software
Genre:Side-Scrolling Shooter
Systems:Amiga
Country of Origin:UK
Difficulty:4/5
Time:4 hours 10 minutes
Won:Yes (118W/91L)

It finally happened. After a day's search of over half a dozen games, I broke down and decided to play a game I previously decided, with absolute finality, I would never ever touch. This is not the only one of course, but this one is different. I thought I knew that it wasn't something that qualified here, but it kept showing up, taunting me whenever I looked up Amiga games...because it was the first game on the system by going A to Z.

Some of you are wondering what's so strange about this title. Others are already asking why someone would make a shooter about this, a few years after it ended. For the second group of you, I have no answers. I could understand a graphic adventure. That would fit the style of the show, be a bit like a British Leisure Suit Larry. Good ideas are hard to come by in the licensed game industry sometimes, as is it wont to be when you're staffed by people who were recently released from a lunatic asylum. 

The cast from about the final series. Note that Herr Flick, the guy sandwiched between the girl with the beret and the guy in the suit, is played by a different actor in this series than the one depicted in this game.

For those of you who don't know, this is 'Allo 'Allo, a British sitcom parodying a show about helping shot down British pilots escape back to Britain. Everyone speaks in a deliberately over the top accent, because that was easier than having a bunch of people speak French and German on a weekly basis. The protagonist, Rene Artois, is a cowardly cafe owner who is trying to profit as much as he can from the war by whoring out his two waitresses/mistresses to the local German officers. He is then forced into helping two British airmen escape by the French Resistance (who are all women) and to hide a painting the local German officers want to sell after the war. Complicating things are the local Gestapo, and his wife, who cannot sing. Much hilarity ensues. I suggest looking up something on Youtube just to have some idea of what I'm talking about.

By now, those of you who have not seen the show before probably got it into your head to question why this game exists. If not, I look forward to your first-person shooter adaptation of One Foot in the Grave. I know why the show's producers did it. Money. After all, this is the only Britcom to have a full season of 26 episodes in an attempt to get on regular America TV. I don't know why a software publisher would think that a show in which the lead character is a coward who is trying his darnedest to get out of violent situations is the perfect protagonist for an action game, but I'm guessing alcohol was involved at one point. (Alternative Software has released a whole bunch of strange licensed titles) Was anybody really clamoring for an 'Allo 'Allo game? Hey, at least player two is playing as Michelle...of the Résistance.

In case it isn't clear, I am approaching this from the position of someone who likes the show, I've seen it twice. There are many things you could actually do with an adaptation. That adventure game idea, a management game where you manage your finances as well as the opinions of the local Nazi and resistance, or a game where you play as Michelle, doing French Resistance things. Of course, the thing about that last one is that unless you're dedicating your game to exclusively having female resistance members, you might as well just make it an original game. God knows that new wave of boomer shooters has a rather large slice of female protagonists. Just hire a woman to fake a bad French accent and have her scream and laugh about how much she loves burnt sauerkraut while napalming a Nazi barracks.

The game opens up with strange techno music with an accordion at the forefront. I feel like if you bought this back in the day, you're probably not feeling positive about it at this moment. There's a simple menu, where you select if you have mono or stereo sound, along with one or two players. After that the game loads, and there's a very bad sign. The game does not care that I have two disk drives and demands that the second disk be put in the first drive. In 1993.

There's a little note giving me my objective. Find the fake paintings of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies. This is the thing in the show that everyone wants and wants to sell to make money. The Germans to make money after the war, the Resistance to be able to make money during the war, Rene to make enough money to leave his wife. During the course of the show, a lot of fakes are made, but I don't think there were that many at once. Ah, darn, I was hoping this game would be so accurate to the show.

I'm actually playing in two player mode, by myself. I wanted to see how it would work, and it turns out it's very strange. I assumed it was going to be like an arcade game. Swap out the characters after a death. No, both on-screen at the same time, except the camera only follows Rene. Michelle can get stuffed. The only other time I remember a camera like this was in Sonic 3...in which player 2 was literally just a side character and oh, unkillable. Technically, I'm not going to be playing as both, unless Rene dying causes the camera to go to her. I was messing around a bit, and this camera following tracks across rooms. Hope you don't get lost in a different room, or you'll never meet back up.

The game starts at the front of Cafe Rene, where there's only a bird off in the distance to threaten you. Although I think the peeing dog hurts you if you touch it. The bird is one of those which weaponizes its off-spring, which is very difficult to dodge in this game. There are weapons you can pick up above and to the right.

This game controls weirdly. By default, it's the usual up to jump, down to crouch and the button fires type of joystick game which you would have thought would be out of style by '93, but as per usual, the game has to do something to counteract being an action game which needs a joystick. Down is your use key, enter rooms, pick up items or activate secret switches/objects. Nothing obvious, everything is seemingly a secret. It's not bad for what it is, it's just that what it is is too busy.

Inside we get Monsieur Leclerc, or at least we would if we could see him, next to Edith, who is starting at a Nazi jumping up and down like he's on a trampoline. I do believe she would be similarly inclined if that happened on the show. Actually, he's only jumping because he's matching my jump. First real enemy of the game and he's deliberately copying my actions? Hey, at least he walks back and forth instead of towards me. Since he's in front of a staircase, if I time it right, I can jump over him, but I'd have to throw him to get back. Note, throwing anything at anyone is just temporarily stunning them, unless they're birds or bats. You can't kill anyone human. You take damage, represented by beer bottles, healed by beer bottles.

The house is a rather strange representation of the main building of the show. The British Airmen aren't there and neither is Edith's mother, Fanny, but everyone else is somewhere in the building or the nearby sewers. Lieutenant Gruber is in the basement, ready to chase ceaselessly after Rene. Otto Flick is at the counter, ready to throw bombs at Rene for existing in the same space. The rest of the named Germans just act like the usual Nazis.

Yvette and Mimi are more interesting than the others. They act as a sort of distraction. I say sort of, because you need to shoot them to activate them, at which point they just bring whoever is wandering around to them. Useful if a Nazi can't be hit with a block, otherwise entirely useless. Interestingly, some of the otherwise unhurtable Nazis, who jump when you jump, can be tricked by having the other player jump. Even if they aren't in the room at the time. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but I like it. 

There are actually only two or so paintings inside the building, most of it is just for flavor. Instead, most of the paintings are in the sewers. Yeah, there are sewers here, it's only natural in a show which had everyone going through the most embarrassing situations possible had a few episodes in the sewers. Why the game stacks most of the level's paintings here is beyond me. Sometimes they're rationally placed, other times they're hidden in strange ways. One of the unusual is that Officer Crabtree is hiding in the sewers, and to get one, you need to shoot him. (The manual does explain that this is a good thing, but still)

The way out of the level is to enter one particular sewer room containing a dummy which looks like Hitler dressed in drag. I do not remember this, but I'm pretty sure there was a blow-up doll at one point. At first, I thought I did this wrong when I just brought Rene here. Ah, of course, I need to bring Michelle here too. At this point, I checked the manual, since the GUI seemed to indicate that I could change character view points. You can. After a few lucky dodges, I brought her here, at which point the two heroes stare at me like this is a creepypasta. When you get down to it, this is a similarly deranged idea... 

Now, Rene and Michelle need to collect all the money on a train in order to get the conductor to stop the train. I've just realized that a train level in a platformer can be worse than a sewer level anywhere else. You're going left or right, with two floors broken up by occasional bottomless pits. This level is not really adding anything else in. I feel like you really need 3D to make this sort of level actually work, since otherwise it's just nothing.

That said, this level is actually three floors...because the ground is a floor. Rather than killing the player right off, it instead hurts the player and it's like Rene or Michelle is trying to catch up to the train. Every so often, they get hurt again, and when they finally get back on solid ground, they stop to catch their breath. Annoying at first? Yes, absolutely. Funny, and more importantly, less annoying than constant death? Also yes. You get knocked back when you get hit, and if this was instant death, I would be padding this review out as a full description of the first level.

Level three is a forest filled with Nazis. Both characters are in quite bad shape at this point, possibly because I keep getting hit by sucker shots, also possibly because I'm trying to get two different characters across the level. Here, the objective is to find Crabtree, shoot him, then grab his black orb, then find eight explosive squirrels. Remember, get the explosives squirrels after getting Crabtree's black orb. Why? I don't know, ours is not to reason why.

The forest is fairly nice and non-linear. The annoying bit is that some of this is done via doors, which need an arrow to find, some of which lead not to new sections but different sections of the same level. Since most seem to be one-way doors back to earlier sections, this means there's a lot of going back to the same area you went to before. At least it's fairly easy to find the squirrels on this level.
 

That said, there is a bit of obnoxiousness here. There's a secret containing one of the squirrels. The problem is it seems less like a secret and more like the game accidentally broke the game's collision. I also only discovered this by sheer accident, so great job. All the other ones are in simple to find locations, so I guess this is the one they go crazy on. 

Level 4, enter the dungeons and free the prisoners. Well, shoot Crabtree in the first door, get the keys, then free the prisoners. This level is almost entirely mundane. The birds here are extremely annoying, but you know, that's the cost of having birds, I guess. You can't have flying enemies without them being annoying. At least you can kill most of them.

Surprise! Ghosts stalk the halls! The local Nazi garrison is so evil that the spirits of the dead remain behind to hurt those who walk the halls indiscriminately! They've all been driven mad by the horrific torture Colonel von Strohm has been a party to. Also, one of the prisoners is in the starting area, but if you're just on your own, you'll have an annoying trip back.

The final level is just about replacing the real painting of the Fallen Madonna with one of the fakes. But first I need to find nine...parts of the code? Nine numbers in a code? I suppose that's one way to stop people from breaking the code manually. This level is a lot less straight-forward, and requires several "well, I'll try anything" to proceed. Like more than one situation you have to find a floor that breaks and then go down it.

This level also asks you to do a lot of "jump over the enemy or eat a point of damage", which has been around quite a bit, but before this wasn't that egregious. Here it's to the point that several parts of the code and the safe itself requires you to deal with this. Or rather, you need to jump on a disappearing crate to get over a guard who can't be shot. Well, I guess we have to do something for this final level.

At the end, the duo escape from the castle in a giant wooden duck. Rene then elopes with Yvette on the escape plane, a move made possible by him holding onto the Fallen Madonna. The end, just like the series regular ending.

Weapons:
A bomb, Helga's bra and a cupcake are the exact same. 1

Enemies:
A basic variety. Shooters, flyers and pacers. I appreciate that none of them actually go after you, though the whole "jumping as you jump" and only shooting when they can see the player is somewhat annoying. 3

Non-Enemies:
I suppose they're more like various pieces of equipment in practice, not in the spirit of things, but there were three other characters, Yvette, Mimi and Alfonso, who distract enemies when hit with a bomb, Helga's bra or a cupcake. 0

Levels:
Nothing special, but it is nice to see locations from the show represented in a video game. 4

Player Agency:
Nice for what it is, but the use key should really be different than crouch. I also don't care for how there's a delay between entering and changing screens, which can result in Rene/Michelle getting hit. 5

Interactivity:
Of the typical "basic" platformer design this game has going on, it sure expects you to explore the entire floor of some places. So many disappearing floors, things you can hit to get something out of it, or just plain things you can mildly interact with. 3

Atmosphere:
I can't believe I'm playing an 'Allo 'Allo game. That's the entire mood. 3

Graphics:
Simple, effective, not terribly interesting. Everything is as it should be, but nothing stands out to me after playing. 4

Story:
Take an episode of the show, make it so there are eight of whatever item was important there, and turn it into a level. Practically doesn't exist in the game itself though. 0

Sound/Music:
Some nice sound effects and then various techno-French songs. Techno-French as in electronic music imitating French accordion music, rather than anything else. 3

That's 23.

I got a better experience than what I expected from this, but there's really nothing special about it. In the realm of Amiga platformers that I've only played because I blog about them, it's better than Linus Spacehead. In the realm of games you should actually play, well, there are worse, far worse, but I wouldn't suggest this unless you really liked the show.

Next time, the review part of Elite...probably.

Elite (Archimedes) - Going Around in Circles

I've made progress. Both in the legitimate, I've actually done something sense and in the sense that I broke down and modified my money so I had enough for fuel scoops. This means I'll have slightly less trouble than before, since I can now pick up debris, which will likely be some ever so lovely stuff. Probably not, but depending on what that is, I could be making 10 credits of pure profit on each random encounter.

The problem now is that I've gotten a slightly better combat rating last time. Which means that now every pirate in the universe knows that I'm not incompetent in combat, and has given me a wide berth unless they're in a big pack. Which is unfortunate, because I've found a docking computer for 1500. Considering that I just cheated to give myself 525 credits to shave literal hours off my playtime, I'm going to be doing a lot of trading jumps.

Still, there's something I can do to speed things along. I can buy slaves at Lave and then sell them at Disco for a large profit. Call me pretentious, but I don't like doing such things even in video games, but we have to get this done within the century, so, we'll do it. Assuming buying them doesn't count as a crime and...oh, I'm an offender now. Reload...wait, I'm still an offender. But I didn't buy them yet? Did I actually make it that time I picked up some narcotics from a destroyed pirate? Huh. Guess the space police are finally getting around to stopping the opioid epidemic. Took them long enough. If I'm a criminal, I might as well actually earn that criminal record.

It takes about three tries. One try I actually clear out a whole group of pirates. I assumed they were pirates, since it would be strange for me to get credits for taking out police. Unfortunately, during that attempt I had a full cargo of slaves, and on the attempt I succeeded, I had no such luck and actually lost money on the trade. Man, I can't even be a bad guy without losing money. I'm getting the trick down to getting into a space station, but there are still a lot of deaths where I seemingly do everything right, only to die anyway.

The fuel scoops are weird for cargo. Because of the way that ships explode, this means that every time you get a chance to use it on cargo, it's going to be flying away at great speed. And if you thought that you could just ram into cargo to pick it up, you haven't been paying attention to this game. You have to ram it in a certain way. Because if you don't, you crash. Add in how you'll rarely get one enemy ship alone and when you are fighting enemy ships, more seem to keep joining in, this makes it somewhat useless for this purpose.

Of course, in order to use the fuel scoops for their stated purpose, one must head to the star to scoop up the hydrogen needed for the fuel. In order to do this, one must first get past the planet and its rapidly spinning moon. It does a complete revolution of the local planet in about ten seconds. Basically just go along the side of the moon's orbit. Now, it's time to dodge the ten thousand pirates between the planet and the sun. Apparently this strategy is popular with people who can't enter a space station, who knew?

And you want to know why there are so many pirates? Because you're going between a planet within habitable planetary range and a star. This isn't like five minutes between stations, this is a haul. Considering that the amount of credits I need to spend after a jump has never gone above 5 credits and the fuel scoops cost 500, this is not a good investment. I can't make it to a star without dying and I can't get any cargo without smashing it against my ship, I cheated myself the most useless equipment possible.

I find a better trading route between Lave and Reorte. Computers to Reorte, furs back to Lave. This makes it so that I can afford to buy that autodocking system sometime within the century. As I made a successful trip into Lave, I noticed that I have offender status again despite doing nothing that would warrant it. What, are furs illegal in the far future? Is the government run by militant vegetarians? I guess what actually caused it was shooting someone in a group of pirates, but that seems unlikely. In practice, I think this ups the amount of times I die between successful journeys, but otherwise nothing has changed.

At the four hour mark for this session, I break down again and cheat myself the docking computer. Which results in a lot less relief and a lot more emptiness. Now what? This doesn't make it so that I have the easiest time of things, but basically 90% of each trip is just waiting now. Leave, hyperspace, travel for five minutes, possibly using the J key, an encounter is something now, then press C to activate the docking computer, then go see if something else in the house needs done. This is just so boring now.

At this point, I've found myself with nothing new to say and do, so I decide I'm already in a situation where either I quit now or actually get something done when I get the money, so I just give myself a boatload of credits and upgrade my ships weapons. With a few thousand credits to spare, I now have a front facing beam laser and a rear facing pulse laser. I'll still be trading, but now it's time to hunt the pirates.

The beam laser is just an increase in damage. That said, it isn't going to help me against a group of more than four, since I'm not going to be able to take down more than four enemies in time before I take enough damage that I'm dead. There's also an increase in laser temperature, but that's not a problem with short, controlled bursts.

A rear weapon is interesting, but not as effective as you'd think. Because you're still dealing with someone shooting at your butt. The view is reversed, and since it's already tricky to aim in this game, this makes it tricky to aim with. It'll probably help at some point. I could have, but didn't get guns on the sides, simply because it's unlikely that there'll be a situation I can use that. I should be able to handle most situations now.

At which point, every encounter becomes the rare other situation. I try to take a full cargo of furs to Leesti, and I encounter a half a dozen pirates and die. I try to take a full load of furs to Zaonce, I encounter the same. After a few tries, it occurs to me that maybe this isn't because of the destinations, but because my cargo is full. No, it's because I have six grand in the bank now, and that makes me a target. I can't win, apparently.

While being able to buy as many missiles as I want and having better guns is a boon, none of this actually helps me against these odds. Missiles take time to lock-on, meaning you need to be right on the money when it comes to these guys approaching. Better guns reduces the amount of shots you need to kill something, but you still need to successfully hit them with your lasers. Perhaps this is because of my default attack pattern, don't attack if you aren't being shot at. Which makes the fact that I have a bounty all the more frustrating. I'm getting slaughtered out here.

Unfortunately, this is the situation as I leave this week. Stuck in an awkward place where I have the illusion of progress and the actuality of being stuck in a rut. I'll try to make more progress, but I'm probably going to be keeping another game on the side so I have something to talk about next Sunday when I inevitably don't make much progress here. There's only one thing I can do at this point, and that's somehow manage to deal with a horde of pirates.

This Session: 5 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 20 minutes