Description
Elite is a free-form space trading and combat simulation, commonly considered the progenitor of this sub-genre. The player initially controls a character referred to as "Commander Jameson", starting at Lave Station with 100 credits and a lightly armed trading ship called Cobra Mark III. Most of the game consists of traveling to various star systems, trading with their inhabitants, gaining money and reputation. Money can also be gained by other means beside trading; these include undertaking military missions, bounty hunting, asteroid mining, and even piracy. As the player character earns money, he becomes able to upgrade his ships with enhancements such as better weapons, shields, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, etc.
The game utilizes pseudo-3D wire-frame graphics; its world is viewed from a first-person perspective. It has no overarching story, though a race known as Thargoids play the role of antagonists: their ships will often attack the player-controlled ship, forcing the player to engage in space combat. Combat is action-oriented, taking place in the same environment as the exploration. The player must use various weapons the ship is equipped with, as well as manoeuvre the ship, trying to dodge enemy attacks. The player can also choose to attack neutral ships; doing so will decrease the protagonist's reputation, eventually attracting the attention of the galactic police.
Elite is notable for its expansive game world, consisting of eight galaxies and 256 planets. The player is free to travel to any of these planets, provided his ship has enough fuel for the trip (the ship's fuel capacity is limited for a journey to the distance of seven light years).
Alternate Titles
- "Classic Elite" -- BBC Micro B Disk informal title
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
The Press Says
Forums
Trivia
Book
The book
Game On! From Pong to Oblivion: The 50 Greatest Video games of All Time contains a chapter on
Elite.
Controversy
Elite's two creators,
Ian Bell and
David Braben, were not on the best of terms for a long time, ever since development on
Elite 2 was cancelled. This erupted into open confrontation during 1999-2000 when Bell decided to release all versions of
Elite as freeware. The dispute was settled and all files relevant to
Elite and Braben's version of the matter can be found in Ian Bell's website.
DOS version
Two versions were supplied with the DOS release, Shaded and Line Drawn. At the selection screen this message is displayed regarding the shaded version: "...but unless your machine is powerful (6MHz 80286 or greater) it will not run very quickly and you should select the line drawn version."
Extras
The package came with a novella about how your father sacrificed himself and saved you by dumping you in the lone escape pod in the ship, and how you managed to "acquire" this ship that you are driving at the beginning of the game.
Fan club
This was apparently the first game, or among the first games, to have a fan club.
Game On exhibition
Elite is being exhibited as part of the "Game On" exhibition in places like the London Science Museum.
David Braben also gave a lecture as part of the exhibition in 2006.
Musical
Ian Bell's brother, Aidan Bell, enjoyed a spell of success writing for musical theatre; sooner or later his muse led him to his brother's enormous success story, which (believe it or not) resulted in 1989's completion of
Elite: the Musical, furthering the storyline set forth in Robert Holdstock's novella
The Dark Wheel. The book and lyrics, with mp3 recordings, (c) Pink Hippo Productions Ltd, can be
perused.
Whether or not this musical has ever been produced on the off-Broadway stage is unclear, though one figures the chances are slim to nil.
Records
Elite (as of 2009) holds fours Guinness World Records. These are for the most format releases for a space trading game, being released on 25 different formats, the first space trading game, the first game to use Lenslok copy protection (the ZX Spectrum version) and the first space game to use procedural generation.
References
The docking sequence is borrowed from the movie
2001 - A Space Odyssey. Also, the music ("On the beautiful Blue Danube") used in this sequence is the same as in the movie. The only difference is, that the space station looks different, but the one who played the sequel to
Elite, namely
Frontier: Elite II, knows that this got corrected...
Ships
Most of the ships, which can be cycled through in start-up with F9/F10, in the game are named after snakes. There's a few exceptions such as the Moray and Gecko.
Awards
- Computer Gamer
- Crash
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 03/2013 – One of the "Ten Best C64 Games“
- Golden Joystick Awards
- 1984 - Best Original Game
- Happy Computer
- Issue 02/1986 - #2 Best Game in 1985 (Readers' Vote)
- Issue 04/1987 - #12 Best Game in 1986 (Readers' Vote)
- IGN
- 2000 - #12 Top PC Games of All Time
- Next Generation
- 2008 - #1 Best Game of the 1980s
- Retro Gamer
- Telespiele (trade show)
- 2007 - One of the 16 Most Influential Games in History
- Times Online
- 2007 - #3 Most Influential Video Game Ever
Information also contributed by
Kasey Chang,
Pseudo_Intellectual,
SDfish,
sgtcook,
SharkD,
Silverblade and
woods01
