Frontier: First Encounters

aka: Elite 3, FFE
Moby ID: 351

Description official description

Frontier: First Encounters is the third part of Elite series. You are a space pirate and you fly around through the universe in your space craft to fulfill different missions. You can also earn money by trading cargo with other races.

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Credits (DOS version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 73% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 30 ratings with 7 reviews)

Quite a bit better than Frontier : Elite 2 after you patch it. A lot.

The Good
Frontier: First Encounters is not quite the exact same game as FE2, but the similarities are enough to warrant it being more of an update than a separate game (indeed, FFE was going to be an expansion pack for FE2, but David Braben could not integrate the updates into FE2 smoothly and therefore decided to release this game as a stand alone product). So, that being the case, what has been updated? Quite a lot, as a matter of fact.

For starters, combat is much more reasonable, as it sets the enemy craft you are dogfighting as the object you are "relative" to (yes, the game still uses newtonian physics), so you no longer have the old 1000 km/s "jousting" duels and the combat is now much more close quarters. That's quite a bit of an improvment, if you ask me.

Also the sound and music is not longer of poor quality or ripped off from other games in the series, and actually have been redone rather well in places. The new sample based sound system instead of the old "Elite Plus" FM-based sound is a massive improvment to the enjoyment of the game, though you probably will tire of these new sounds after a bit anyway and will turn them off regardless. The remastered musical pieces from FE2 that are present in this game sound much better than they did originally. And the new music pieces done for this game, which were rendered by the Quality Quartet, are also very good and easy to listen to.

Apart from the said major changes, the minor ones make quite a bit of a difference as well. New features like newspapers you can subscribe to, various new ships (some of them very good and enjoyable to fly around in, the others being quite average) and items (like the Tractor Beam Cargo Scoop), plus a new political super power makes it feel like the game's universe really has progressed 50 years since FE2. Which it has. In the game, that is.

All and all this is a very solid update indeed.

Oh, and the Thargoids are back, but not in the way you imagine.

The Bad
Well, it's famous (or is that infamous) for being quite buggy. The only games that come to mind that are more buggy than this game in particular are the Battlecrusier games and eXtreme Paintbrawl, and those were heavily crippled due to the bugs! FFE narrowly manages to avoid this and remain playable, but only just. Even after these many years, it still doesn't work with Windows boxes in a natural sense, and only recently did a fan, John Jordan, manage to reprogram the executable file so that it would run in a Windows environment. While the fan made hacks do fix many of the problems the game had when it was released, it would have been nice to have it work properly in the first place.

The Bottom Line
This is a worthy update to FE2. In fact it is quite a good standalone game, and is worthy of your time and energy. However, you will have to search around the Internet a little bit for John Jordan's webpage with his fixed version of the executable file for FFE. Unless you don't want to play it in Windows.

DOS · by Longwalker (723) · 2002

Good but flawed, 33rd century space action as you partake the role of an interstellar mercenary.

The Good
Many of my friends who have seen this game alwys ask me questions like, how many levels does first encounters have and how do you complete it? I then tell them that there is no set goals or end to the game, which i believe is one of the games most appealing features. You can play the game any way you like, such as completing the missions to find the insect thargoids, or you can just cruise around space reliving the moon landings or trying to land on Pluto. The point being, there is no linear game structure, you can pretty much do what you like (barring leaving your ship, which is a pity.). This is not the only good point of FFE. Others include contacting the Thargoids (They were not present in Frontier.), completing both military and the set missions which are provided, which can include nuking reserch bases of the enemy militia, assassinating high ranking figures and even smuggling spies from one planet to the other. Finally the graphics of the game are on the whole improved from Frontier with texture mapped planets and more exotic space ports and orbital space ports.

The Bad
One of the most irritating issues to this game is the amounts of bugs present. Some of these remain even after the patch disks later released by Gametek, after the first unplayable version of the game was released. These bugs include the joystick going crazy, and certain problems with the set missions ( wont give away too much so as not to spoil the game for those who havent done them.), and some ships (such as a gun turret being placed behind the hull, which registers as a hit on your ship if you fire this gun. Very annoying.). The graphics can also be a bit dodgy at times, with problems such as cities appearing to "hover" on the planets surface and when you land sometimes your ship appears to sink beneath ground level producing graphical glitches. The auto pilot can also crash you rather than land you in a space port. But on the whole, the game is playable and enjoyable once you get into it.

The Bottom Line
So to sum up, if you liked Frontier, missed the Thargoids and enjoy a long running complex space sim, you could do worse than get a copy of First Encounters. But if youre in to blasting everything in sight and easily pick up and play games, then I wouldnt reccomend this title. But overall FFE is a pretty descent space sim which you can play to your own rules without following a set game plan.

DOS · by Stuart Stocks (6) · 2001

A mess, how could the co-creator of the classic Elite create such a monster?

The Good
Its the 2nd sequel to one of my all time favorites, Elite! The trading and ship upgrade options as well as the variety of ships you can pilot is quite extensive.

Unlike the other games in this series, this one does have a bit more plot that you can follow (at your option). But its still essentially an open ended game of exploration, combat and trading.

The Bad
To start the graphics are bad. The previous game, Frontier, had pretty spartan graphics but they were functional. In this game they decided to jazz up the graphics and the result is quite ugly. Its like watching a computer animated movie done by film students. You know what they were intending to do but the look is really rough and amatuerish. The best way to describe it is that it looks like a teenage girl who is trying too hard to look pretty by using too much makeup and having deep blue mascare on a pale complextion.

If you read my review of Frontier, then you know how I don't like the combat in that game. This one has improved the engine but its still quite dull and frustrating with too much empahsis on physics over fun.

The cd version has voices and some full motion video. Since this game was made in 1995 you know that this was a trendy thing to do and most of the time it was a lot of bad acting. This game is no exception, the acting is horrid and does not belong in the game, it just does not add anything to it.

Worst of all are the bugs. If you thought the tribbles were annoying in the orginal Elite then wait until you play this game. You will beg for a cargo hold of tribbles rather than put up with the crashing, freezing and graphic problems of this game. The game was unplayable in its orginal release, patches were made that will let you play it but the fact the game is full of design problems that no patch can fix doesn't help. It should not have been released in the state it was.

The Bottom Line
This game belongs with infamous titles like Battlecrusier 3000AD (another Gametek product), Starfleet II and Outpost which were buggy beta versions released as complete games on unsuspecting customers. When will publishers learn that a buggy release will only hurt game sales? Bad game collectors will like it, so everyone else should stay away. A sad sequel to a classic original game. With two duds in a row it seems that Elite co-creater Ian Bell, who was not involved in either of the sequels, was the real genius behind the making of the classic original not David "its not a bug, its a feature" Braben.

DOS · by woods01 (129) · 2001

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Credits

David Braben and Ian Bell were the original authors of the first Elite back in the 80s. Braben made this third game without giving Bell credit or royalties for the space ships and other ideas he created that were reused. Bell had to sue Braben for payment.

Development

Frontier: First Encounters was originally intended to be an add-on disk for the second game, Frontier: Elite II. However, because they rushed that game, its engine could not handle expansion disks effectively. The engine was rewritten and the game was released standalone. Unfortunately, it was also rushed and filled with numerous bugs that made its initial release unplayable.

Awards

  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/1996 - Most Annoying Bugs in 1995

Information also contributed by woods01 .

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Related Sites +

  • Frontier: First Encounters FAQ
    First Encounters Frequently Asked Questions (Answers from David Braben)
  • JJFFE Central
    A conversion of the game for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, which additionally includes minor improvements and bug fixes.
  • Space: The Final Frontier
    An elite fansite covering everything elite.
  • The Elite Club
    Where you can download Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters, now released as shareware

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 351
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Additional contributors: Brian Hirt, Cravo, Rebound Boy, Longwalker, Indra was here, Crawly, Patrick Bregger.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified December 4, 2023.