Description
Elite is often credited with inventing the space trading
genre. This genre melds space-borne combat with a
"buy low, sell high" freight transport system whose
profits are used to purchase ship upgrades.
The game provides eight galaxies each with over
2,000 planets to explore. The player, initially
Commander Jameson, starts at Lave Station with 100
Credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra
Mark III, to his name. Most of the ships that the
player encounters are similarly named after snakes,
or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated
through a number of means. These include piracy,
trade, military missions, bounty hunting and the
mining of asteroids. The money generated by these
enterprises allows the player to upgrade their ship
with such enhancements as better weapons, shields,
increased cargo capacity, docking autopilot and
more.
Travel between planets is constrained to those
within range of their ships limited fuel capacity (8
light years), which can be replenished after docking
with a space-station in orbit around a planet - a
challenging task without an autopilot. It requires
matching the ship's rotation to that of the
stations. Travel between the games 8 galaxies is
achieved through the purchase of an extremely
expensive one-shot "galactic hyperspace" upgrade. Be
wary though! There is little practical difference
between the different galaxies, and there are a
number of systems that you can reach only by
galactic hyperspace which, when arrived at, will be
MORE than 8 LY(light years) from its nearest
neighbour, indeed the eighth galaxy contains an
isolated planet that, if reached by hyperspace,
traps the traveller.
Elite was one of the first home computer games to
utilise wireframe 3D graphics. Another novelty was
the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert
Holdstock which influenced new players with insight
into the moral and legal codes which they might
aspire to. It elevated the technically brilliant
software beyond the pigeon-hole of "game".
Elite's open ended game model, advanced game engine
and revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that it was
ported to virtually every home computer system of
the day, and earned it a place as a classic and a
genre maker in gaming history. Even now, over 20
years after it was published, Elite is frequently
used as a yardstick by which any new space trading
game is measured. It has often been said that "Elite
has been imitated but never bettered"; while this is
perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, it is certainly true to
say that Elite is by far the most original, and
creatively successful space trading game ever made.
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