Elite / Frontier Worst Version of Elite

loudscotsbloke · Oct 19, 2013

I am sure (like me) there are a number of you that have played many versions of Elite. I am lucky enough to own every version, so I have my own opinions on this subject, but before I share my experiences with the truely terrible versions that were released, I want to hear your stories..... so.... WORST version of Elite is .... ??

PacalB · Oct 20, 2013

What are you talking about man? Clearly you are lost in the mind there!

Or, maybe it is late and you have just been drinking a weeeeee bit to much of that usquebaugh?

Sparticus · Oct 20, 2013

loudscotsbloke said:
I am sure (like me) there are a number of you that have played many versions of Elite. I am lucky enough to own every version, so I have my own opinions on this subject, but before I share my experiences with the truely terrible versions that were released, I want to hear your stories..... so.... WORST version of Elite is .... ??

I have only played 2 versions - Elite on C64 and Frontier Elite II on my PC at the time.

So of these 2 versions - I would say the Elite on the C64 was much better - probably due to on the C64 - you were not expecting graphics - just great game play, but on the PC - VGA graphics at the time - still did not in my opinion cut it.

Or - it could have been my PC back then - which I suspect it was.

Hence why I intend to buy a flash new PC when E.D. is released in full

withnail · Oct 20, 2013

FE2 was the worst one for me.

Played the original to death on the BBC, Archimedes and the PC and also got quite far in FFE.

I persevered with FE2 but never really got to grips with the flight model.

Steve · Oct 20, 2013

Electron Elite was bad because it had no colour, no suns hence no fuel scooping and the planets didn't seem to rotate.

Einstein Elite was bad because enemies didn't explode, they just vanished :S

PC Elite was bad because it looked hideous.

FFE is the best IMHO.

Styggron · Oct 20, 2013

Steve said:
Electron Elite was bad because it had no colour, no suns hence no fuel scooping and the planets didn't seem to rotate.

Agreed !

Einstein Elite was bad because enemies didn't explode, they just vanished :S

Goodness I can't remember, I'll need to play it again.

PC Elite was bad because it looked hideous.

ooooooooooooooooh yes....... it sure did look hideous! Plus was a LITTLE better though.

FFE is the best IMHO.

For me it will and always shall be the first one I played, C64, Disk Version. That is my favourite...........

Yes yes I know this thread is supposed to be the one we liked the least......oh well.

JazHaz · Oct 20, 2013

Of the ones I played, Atari ST/Amiga Elite was the worst, but I heard that PC Elite was even worse. My favourite always was the original, BBC disk version.

Allen Stroud · Oct 20, 2013

Whereas I loved Atari Elite.

I didn't like Elite Plus. The Electron version was the worst though in my experience.

Geraldine · Oct 20, 2013

The Amiga 1.05 version of Frontier Elite II!

Shock-a-rooney!
Why? The wormhole "bug" was fixed. Didn't like that one bit. I felt an important part of the game had just been taken away, hence to this day I still play the 1.01 version.

withnail · Oct 20, 2013

What was wrong with Elite Plus?

I got to Elite on that. Did I miss something?

JazHaz · Oct 20, 2013

withnail said:
What was wrong with Elite Plus?

I got to Elite on that. Did I miss something?

Elite Plus wasn't too bad, it was the the original PC version of Elite that was really dire. The original PC version was before Elite Plus.

EDIT: see this page for info.

Cody · Oct 20, 2013

withnail said:
What was wrong with Elite Plus? I got to Elite on that. Did I miss something?

The number of kills required to reach Elite in Elite Plus was considerably fewer than the original.

withnail · Oct 20, 2013

Cody said:
The number of kills required to reach Elite in Elite Plus was considerably fewer than the original.

Tried to search for a comparison chart for this. Is there one available? I would like to check this out.

Otherwise I am going to have to start playing Oolite or emulate BBC Elite to prove my ranking!

Cody · Oct 20, 2013

It's something I picked-up somewhere ages ago, but I cannot remember where. I played Elite Plus a lot, and it always felt wrong - Elite rank came too soon. I took three commanders to Elite with it.

Another thing - I hated that Archangel title you got awarded.

Captain N · Oct 20, 2013

I dislike Elite Plus. The rotation of the NPC ships seemed to use a different (and simpler) algorithm compared to other versions and it just felt wrong. As far as I could tell they just rotate around absolute axes instead of pitching and rolling around relative to their own orientation like the player does. The graphics are also ugly.

The other one I'm not too keen about is FFE. Sure it adds some nice stuff over FE2, but the graphics took a move towards the uglier, most of the new ships just looked silly and there apparently no longer was a way to track NPC ships on the system map.

JeffRyan · Oct 20, 2013

Styggron said:
For me it will and always shall be the first one I played, C64, Disk Version. That is my favourite...........

Yes yes I know this thread is supposed to be the one we liked the least......oh well.

Yeah I only ever played Elite on C64 so that has to be my best and as mentioned on another thread, I did the missions, killed that ship and got some goodies though I can't remember what they were, maybe a navy ecm or something....

Kerrash · Oct 20, 2013

Hmmm, my least favourite would probably have to be the original DOS FFE; just because of the bugs and crashes. The NES version is probably a close second due the controller limitations, not the developers fault

loudscotsbloke · Oct 20, 2013

loudscotsbloke said:
I am sure (like me) there are a number of you that have played many versions of Elite. I am lucky enough to own every version, so I have my own opinions on this subject, but before I share my experiences with the truely terrible versions that were released, I want to hear your stories..... so.... WORST version of Elite is .... ??

For me it has to be the Acorn Electron version. It was a poor conversion, and although I have tried to stick with it... I play it the least. Due to memory restrictions and hardware limitations, several features were absent from this version. These included the rotating planets and suns, and no Thargoids. 5 types of ship were featured in total, one less than the BBC cassette version, which included the Thargoids, and considerably less than BBC disc version (18 ships). It also failed to reproduce the split screen trick employed on the BBC version (allowing a four-colour HUD) which meant the entire display was in monochrome on the Electron.

The IBM/Tandy 512 (non VGA) edition is also poor. I know that the Einstein version did not have exploding ships, but I quite like that version, and I am glad it was released on that platform.

Philip Coutts · Oct 21, 2013

I played Elite for the first time on an Acorn Electron so I have fond memories of it. Also played Elite on the Atari ST and Frontier on the Amiga. Can't really remember thinking any of them were bad at the time.

Steve · Oct 21, 2013

loudscotsbloke said:
Due to memory restrictions and hardware limitations, several features were absent from this version. These included the rotating planets and suns, and no Thargoids. 5 types of ship were featured in total, one less than the BBC cassette version, which included the Thargoids, and considerably less than BBC disc version (18 ships). It also failed to reproduce the split screen trick employed on the BBC version (allowing a four-colour HUD) which meant the entire display was in monochrome on the Electron.

Interesting. Thanks for this information