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 RetroView - Elite
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Choices of a traderThe planets in the eight galaxies are divided into two main groups: industrial and agricultural. Industrial worlds will offer cheaper machines, computers and other such goods, whereas agricultural worlds will provide cheap grain, meat etc. The worlds also range from poor to rich and this, along with their political status, affects supply and demand by the popuplation. It is the task of the trader to find the best trade routes with the highest profits if he or she wants to become rich quickly. This desire will, of course, lead them to questionable trade goods such as narcotics and weapons. A beginning trader can hardly afford these goods, but after a short time of trading in other goods, they become a viable, and very profitable option. Unfortunately, these goods will also attract attention from the other travelers in the space lanes. If and when they learn that you are carrying cargo that translates into a quick fortune, lightly armed traders will soon be harassed by pirates. The trader will face pirates in almost every system, but especially in the poor star systems, as well as in systems engaged in an ongoing war or those in anarchy. This encounter with pirates will bring the trader closer to becoming a bounty hunter. How about bounty hunting and, perhaps some piracy on the side?Bounty hunting is a profitable side-trade to any trader (or trading is a profitable side-trade to any bounty-hunter) as all the eight galaxies are pretty much filled with pirates. The best way to find them is, of course, by buying your cargo hold of narcotics or weapons and then jumping into an anarchy system. What some might call a suicide becomes a real opportunity for a bounty hunter with a fully equipped ship. The more valuable one's cargo, the higher the chances of attracting pirates, and thus, bounties to you. A tamper-proof computer system aboard your ship and at the local space stations, keeps track of all activity in the system and record the kills made by the pilots, paying bounties as necessary. This system also provides the means to a fame for most pilots as their lethality in space combat is used to rank them on a scale from harmless to elite. Becoming known as an elite pilot is the dream of many young commanders, as it is the way to fame and fortune, or to a silent death in the deep space for those thousands who do not make it. Although all activities inside star systems are thus recorded, space is essentially in a state of anarchy. In most versions of Elite, no one will stop you from destroying a few fellow traders on the side and picking up their cargo before you head to the local space station. Only the immediate area around the space stations is patrolled by the local police forces and any crimes committed there will immediately attract dozens of police Vipers after you. So, never discharge your weapons when you approach a space station, unless you are attacked first. Battling in the starsThe space battles are the salt that makes a trader's day. Without them, there would be hardly anything to do during those long voyages from the outer rims of a star system to the space station far away next to one of the planets in the inner system. The battles are also likely to provide the bounty hunter with the day's pay and add up to the number of kills committed, thus increasing your reputation and allowing you to become one of the elite one day. Depending on the system and the attractiveness of the player's ship and his reputation, one will usually encounter only 1 to 5 enemies at a time. These space pirates usually fly relatively small vessels, but there are bigger and more dangerous ships out there. One of the most dangerous pirate ships is Wolf Mk II (only found in the in Amiga version), which is a strong and agile enemy. Yet the most dangerous enemy of all is the Thargoid. Thargoids are an ancient enemy of mankind and they live in a dimension of their own. But sometimes they visit our dimension and attack human and alien ships randomly, or pull them out of our reality into their own to have some fun destroying them. Thargoids are very hard to kill and can launch several smaller remote fighters to help them in battle, confounding their enemy's radar screen with dozens of targets. Commanders attacked by Thargoids rarely live to tell about it, but there are some foolhardy pilots who purposefully rig their ships to enter the Thargoid dimension - either to end their lives in one final blaze of glory, or to feel the rush of a near impossible battle. MissionsElite offers a selection of secret missions to the player. These vary between the different versions of the game, but they involve quickly breeding Trumbles, ships with cloaking devices etc. Since these are secret missions, I'm not going to reveal much more about them here. The only downside is that the number of missions is limited and once you have done them, the game offers little variety besides trading, pirating, bounty-hunting and the goal of becoming Elite. But, considering the other games of the day, Elite's open-endedness was a bright star amongst many dull ones. Right on, Commander!Elite was an instant success in its time and received the highest honors in all reviews. Several following games attempted to surpass it, but none, to date, have succeeded in achieving quite the same feel. Even Elite's sequels, Frontier: Elite II and Frontier First Encounters, which were great games in their own right, differed enough from the original to not challenge its position or to diminish its memory. It is a classic that will be dearly remembered and, for a many gamers, will never lose its status. For those, modern games simply cannot reproduce the feeling that flying a Cobra Mk III into a heated battle used to give them...   |
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