Not really our usual obscure classic! But seeing as most of the copies in circulation don't work on 128k Spectrums, maybe a lot of you still don't own this legend. I know I had to spend almost a year with anticipation levels in the red whilst I searched for a working second hand 48+ Speccy.
The purchase of the original ELITE package had come a lot easier; the sum of 10 pence was forthcoming! Poster, mini-novel, manual and keyboard overlay intact... ten pissing pee! (and even the Lenslok was in there). Fate smiles on the odd occasion and all classic hunters take heart, your turn is just around the corner.
As a late comer to the game that took both the C64 and Speccy by the short and curlies, I was to discover the real meaning of the term 'hooked'. The power of the game is that it puts you in control to be as nasty or as humble as you want to be. If a down to earth thug like me can trudge off to the off licence thinking he was docked around a planet, eager to taste some Xeetri home brew, then what chance did a twatty Sci-fi dweeb have with keeping a grip on reality! I blush to reveal it....
Starting in a bog-standard trading ship, you have to trade between planets, and hopefully making a profit so you can upgrade your ship with the many products on offer. Different planets have different economies and produce so it takes skill and experience to know what one could buy cheaply from one, to sell to another. This is a good game in itself but this is ELITE and the best is yet to come! Other traders would like your cargo, pirates certainly want it (and the space pigs like to kick your arse when they get bored - just like real life in fact). There are many types of ship out there and it takes experience to know which ones will start throwing missiles at you. You can always shoot anything that moves of course (and nick the cargo that is left amongst the debris) but its a hard life that one. No peace for the wicked.
The smooth wireframe graphics will have you convinced within ten seconds. TAU CETI has it and Elite has it too - when you get in trouble you tend to shit your pants (and how many Segatendo gems do that?) Stitch that Sonic. Of course it is pretty un-realistic to have all those planets so close together, a sun every few thousand light years... but that's not the point is it. ELITE is the complete game; strategy, combat, an imagination grabber of extreme power. In fact it's so good it bloody scares me! I propose we round up all the best demo coders and graphic artists and get them to convert ELITE 2 onto the 128. Good Idea?
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