doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (07/21/87)
Elite -- Firebird Software
Outer space cargo trading and battle simulation
1 player
C-64 disk, 1 joystick recommended
Discount price $30
Overall grade -- A to A+
Boy am I in trouble. It's been years since I've been really "hooked" by
a computer game, but last weekend I spent about 20 hours playing Elite.
My wife isn't too happy about that...
The basic scenario is like this: you're the solo pilot of a Cobra III
spacecraft, generally trying to make a buck (well, "credit") by buying
stuff at planets where it's cheap and hauling it to planets where it'll
sell for a good price. Not as easy as it sounds; there exist unfortunate
individuals, probably from disadvantaged backgrounds and broken homes,
who consider *zero* a good price for buying stuff ("pirates", that is).
Some planets have very few such unrehabilitated miscreants; others are
swarming with them. It generally depends on the stability of the planet's
government. It is recommended that the beginner avoid worlds which are
listed as "anarchic", although such worlds necessarily give very good
deals on whatever trade does make it through the gauntlet.
As your bank account increases, you can start increasing your ship's
defensive and offensive equipment. This will increase your options,
by allowing you to visit more dangerous (and profitable) planets, and
by opening up entirely new sources of income.
You can branch into legal alternate occupations like salvage hunting,
asteroid mining or bounty hunting. Or you can ignore the law and go into
smuggling or even become a pirate yourself. These aren't career decisions
or anything, you just do whatever you feel like at the moment, as long as
the opportunity is there and you're equipped for it. But engaging in
illegal activities on even a part-time basis will keep the police ships
after you.
Enough about the scenario, here's what the game looks like.
The trading sequences, which take place while docked at a space station,
are routine text-type operations. The only thing unusual is just the
number of different types of cargo. Where most trading games have
maybe 3 to 5 different types of goods, Elite has 14 legal and 3 illegal
categories ranging from "food" to "slaves".
Selecting a destination involves bringing up the graphic map of the nearby
worlds (the game's universe covers 8 galaxies of 255 worlds each, but
usually only 3 to 8 can be reached on a single load of hyperspace fuel
from any given world). The joystick is used to select a world, and the
text description of that world should be called up to see if it's a
likely destination.
Once launched from the space station, the 3-D in-flight graphics begin.
These are some pretty darn good graphics. They're "vector" graphics --
objects are drawn in outlines, rather than solid colors. "Hidden line
removal" is used on all objects, so you don't see through the object to
the lines on the back side. Update rate is very good, ranging from >10
times per second when little is on-screen, degrading to maybe 2 to 3
times per second when a number of objects have to be drawn. At its
worst, Elite is about as fast as Flight Simulator II can do at its best.
Negative points on the graphics: they're strictly black-and-white, drawn
with exclusive-ORs. This isn't all bad; by using B&W you get maximum
resolution. The exclusive-OR approach does cause the image to flicker
a bit, though. And as you might expect, you don't get "object priority";
you can see the planet through the space station, etc.
The sound effects are generally "okay". We've all heard computer "laser
blasts" before, eh? Which makes it a big surprise when you finally have
enough credits to buy a "docking computer" and you turn the thing on --
you get a very good multi-voice rendition of "The Blue Danube Waltz" while
it docks you at the rotating space station (a la "2001").
Something which is annoying at first: after a hyperspace jump, you spend
a long time (maybe as much as five minutes) cruising down to the orbit
altitude where the space stations are. This is where the pirates will
try to blast you, and later you'll be going into worlds where it won't
be so boring. And even when it is, you'll appreciate those breaks
because that's when your shields recover and energy banks recharge.
But after reaching orbit altitude, the long drive to the space station is
always boring. And while the docking maneuver isn't boring, it is time
consuming (the docking computer makes it somewhat faster and a lot less
challenging). Overall, this is a slow-paced game except during combat.
Side note: a well-equipped bounty hunter needn't visit space stations
if he uses only his lasers and no missiles nor energy bombs.
Initially I didn't really notice, but the more I play the more I'm
impressed with the overall "class act" that the program presents. It
comes with a "fast loader" that is really fast -- 40 seconds from start
'til you're running. With no head-banging copy protection. And in that
40 seconds it has loaded the *whole* thing. I am stunned that a program
of this magnitude, with all of the text and other data involved, fits in
the 64K and never has to read anything else off of the disk!
Another thing I like is that the game's universe doesn't exist entirely
for the player. Example: I had been having occasional trouble when I'd
launch from a space station and drop forward speed as recommended in
preparation for hyperspace jump. Sometimes my aft shield would take a
hit. Strange... you're supposed to be safe from attack while in the
vicinity of a space station. So one time I switched to looking out the
rear screen right after launch and found my problem; another spacecraft
was launching behind me and I was slamming on my brakes right in front
of the space station entrance!
Just when you think you've got it all figured out, the game drops another
surprise on you. I've made maybe 100 "trips", and on one of those trips
something totally unexpected happened, something not mentioned at all in
the documentation. No, I won't give it away; it was clearly intended to
be a surprise. I wonder how many more are hidden in there???
Okay, so I'm very enthusiastic about Elite. But it can't be perfect,
right? Right.
Elite's documentation just isn't as good as the program. Oh, it's not
*bad*, it's just not great. The basic problem is that this is a *very*
wide-ranging program, and the documentation has a *lot* of ground to
cover, and it doesn't succeed in covering all of that ground.
The documentation describes equipment and such in almost endless and totally
irrelevant detail. The authors apparently got great enjoyment from making
up silly names and numbers. Example: "Medusa Pandora Self Homing Energy
Bomb ... capable of Megazon Destruct Force 13. Has heat radius of 9000 km.
Developed by Klaus-Kline laboratories..." when the important part of the
description is "... is activated by the [Commodore] key and will destroy all
other ships, asteroids, and missiles in the vicinity." Some people may enjoy
these far-too-frequent pointless excursions into nonsense names and numbers,
but I feel that it simply obscures the real information that the player needs.
It's a lot harder to distinguish between information and nonsense in other
sections. And on top of that, a number of important points are totally
undocumented. Some of these can be guessed at from the Quick Reference
Card, many can't. (The Quick Ref doesn't suffer from nonsense, and so far
I've found it 100% accurate). Example: nothing explains the difference
between red blips and yellow blips on the scanner.
Sadly, the one who suffers most is the rank beginner. Starting out with
no experience and almost no defenses against pirates, the beginner needs
a lot of guidance in such a wide-ranging program. Instead he finds
gobbledy-gook. The result is that it is way too hard to get started.
Time after time, the attempt at an initial trip ends in destruction.
I almost gave up, which would have been quite a shame.
So overall, an A+ game packaged with B- documentation. If you buy it,
drop me an E-mail note and I'll fill you in on what I've learned...
--
Doug Pardee, Edge Computer Corp; ihnp4!mot!edge!doug, seismo!ism780c!edge!doug