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.