"A Soul-Destroyingly Awful Game."

(It is a dark and stormy night. In space. We savour the stars awhile; only to suddenly pull out to view a large cargo-bearing ship hurtling through the void at immense speeds. The camera cuts to an interior view. It is underwhelming.)

Player : My, my. I'm supposed to be going really fast and yet the screen is just blue rubbish with some white dots. And - what's that? A floating toilet?
Pirate : Avast ye, land-lubber! I come to destroy you!
Player : Gah! It's some sort of badly drawn ship! However, I will enter into the spirit fo this game - I will fight. Surrender, you foul cur! Aha!
(Ships fly past each other, blue beams flaring, badly synched ZZZZzzz noises representing glanced shields.)
Player : I can't hit him! Infernally useless combat system.
Pirate : I can't hit him! The ship's too unresponsive!
(Coming to a solution, the pirate slams himself into the player's ship. Everything dies in a mildly greasy pop of an explosion.)
Player (face screwed up in distaste) : That was hardly fair.

I am a big big big Elite fan. I was, at only 10, the proud owner of a father who had a BBC B. And Elite. Even though he hogged it terribly, I still managed to get some play time in here and there. I was hooked on the simplicity of the combat, the cleverly represented solar systems and compelling missions.
And on the Amiga I later loved Elite Plus (which knocked the PC Elite Plus into a swamp, such was it's superiority).

When Frontier came out I was sure to get it as swiftly as possible. And I played it to death - not because I liked it - but because I was desperately trying to wring some FUN out of the darned thing.
The graphics and sound were obviously quite unassuming, but I can look past that. No - no - the combat system, as described above, simply did not work. Not a glimmer of excitement. Trading was slow and laborious and downright stupid, and one had to keep track of things because it was all so variable. The whole thing had become an anorak's delight, pointless trading and the promise of being able to slingshot round stars. AND YOU COULDN'T! IT NEVER WORKED!
In a dizzy and furious moment I snapped the disks in two, after struggling my way up to some small fortune and reputation. But it just wasn't worth it.

This ''game'' was no fun at all. On no system was it ever enjoyable. The sequel to Elite, a cruel let down.
I did like the system map and books that came with it, though, so it wasn't all bad.
All is not lost, though. I still play the original Elite.

Put Simply :
Graphics and Sound : Pretty dang awful. 1 each. On an A600 with two megs of RAM, at least. But then the PC version wasn't really any better, and on my friends souped up A1200 it was barely improved. 1 it is.
Gameplay : If this game was a person it would break into your house and eat you cat. 1.
Being Named Elite : 4. Wooh! Elite! Wee!

1+1+4=6. 6 divided by 3 is 2. 2 multiplied by the hypotenuse of my ankle is the sum of the parts of the applied parrot...
This all averages out to a 2. I rated it such. Consistence has been achieved.

Conclusion :

*Sob.* Why, David Braben, why?

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/08/01, Updated 12/08/01