Anyone played Elite way back in 1994

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have a question to any of you people who had a Commodore 64 and played games with it. Any of you guys played a game call Elite the space combat flight simulator game made in 1994. See back in 1994, i was in Canada only for 5 years but i did not had a computer, nevermind had play any computer games. but nowadays, everytime i see a space flight sims that are made, i always hear references to that game. it is like that game was the gold standard to everything that came after it.

But since i never played Elite, or played it when it was first came out. I never experienced any of the Woah or WOW factors playing it. The other thing is, all the current reviewers for games like X3, Freelancer, etc, in their reviews of all the modern gens of all these space flight sims, it alwasy made comments like "all these games are attempted spirtual hires to a gamce call Elite" Well..has any of these reveiwers play the game. And as far as gold standard or references goes, is it a standard based on fans expectations or from the expectations of game developers.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Elite was without doubt one of the games the revolutionised the genre of space trading / fighting sims. Or rather, invented it. Unlike most arcade space sims, it also had a Newtonian propulsion system, meaning your spaceship didn't handle like a WW-2 fighterplane (or X-Wing).

Of contemporary games, I think Wing Commander Privateer did a good job to capture part of the spirit, while X, X2 and now X3 try to recreate the whole thing.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, it was first published in 1984. The Commodore 64 version came in 1985 (I think). I know this as it was an eagerly awaited Christmas gift when I was 15. Very fun game for the time... if I could get my Commodore 64 running again, I would love to play the true version (still have the shiny black box, disks, manuals, etc...). Many hours were lost in this game.

As for the comments by publishers of "spiritual successors" to Elite; they are only marketing. The developers might have played Elite and were inspired by it, but to be sure they are targeting people who have played Elite in the past with statements like that. So far, very few of these games have come close to generating the feelings of playing Elite... but this might be because my tastes and expectations have changed a bit with age.

If you are interested you can play the original versions of Elite from Ian Bell's website: here. Or visit David Braben's site to download the official sequels: here

There are also a number of clones and even an online java version floating around out there somewhere in cyberspace.
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played elite quite extensively on an Apple IIe during the mid 80’s. After some point in the game you were given a quest that involved going after a specific ship. There were 8 separate galaxies that could only be reached by galactic hyperspace which was a single use device. Once used you could only buy another on a class 10 tech planet or above I think it was.

I was able to stay on track of this mysterious ship with only occasional vague clues through 4 of the 8 galaxies but on entering the 5th galaxy he immediately used another galactic hyperspace to go onto the 6th galaxy while I had to detour to a class 10 tech planet to replace my galactic hyperspace. I was never able to catch up or find any other clue in the game as to where this mystery ship went or otherwise reach a finale of the quest.

I even restarted the game on two separate occasions trading my way up to millions of credits, attaining elite status and finishing a minor quest that resulted in receiving a special military grade energy unit but never getting beyond the 5th galaxy in the major quest. I probably spent close to two years playing nothing but this game, the game itself was interesting in itself but very disappointing in being unable to achieve the final quest.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
oh the old commodore...what great fun....elite was excellent....anyone play red storm rising? sub(marine) game.

Elite was just about everything you wanted. I'm sure the graphics would be laughable today....but i wore out many a joystick playing that game. Hated to see that rig go....had lots of games....
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Was even better on the Amiga, mostly due to the better sound capabilities.

The thing with Elite was that before that, there were only space shooters.
All of a sudden, you had this game in which you were totally free to do whatever wanted, whether it was to act like a space pirate, peacefull trader or a stupid jerk shooting at the docking station and get swamped by policeships.