Elite / Frontier Elite memories

[rosebarn]

I am very happy to have found this forum. My mate and I were chatting to the most addictive games we had played as kids ie Daley Thompsons Decathlon, Speedball, Chucky Egg, Jet Set Willy, Glider Rider, Gauntlet (Red Valkyrie shot the food!)... and Elite.

Elite was not only the most addictive game I've ever played but also the best. I remember first seeing it on my Acorn Electron and then upgrading that eventually to a Commodore Amiga and the differences were vast (solid space stations etc)

It's great that it is now downloadable and I'm going to give that a bash later - but it would be brilliant to see Elite on one of the new consoles. I'd buy a XBox 360 or PS3 just to get that game.

I remember spending months playing it. I remember how satisfying it when I managed to land the first time without a docking computer! (this was the electron version with wire framed ships and space station).

When I first played it I was a fugitive and spent most of my time hanging around the space stations and shooting unsuspecting traders as they came out or landed and the police ships which then would come pouring out. Picking up their cargo and hyperspacing out of there. The only snag with this that being a fugitive was quite annoying!

I then spent months starting again, rising steadily through the ranks. I never go to Elite status. I remember there was harmless, mostly harmless... to dangerous. After a year or so, I ended up as deadly but could never reach the elusive Elite status.

I'm 37 now and my first computer was a ZX81, Oric Atmos and then a Spectrum followed by the Electron, Atari 800XL, Atari ST, Amiga x 3 and finally PC + PS2 for games.

I find myself telling my kids who now play GTA on their PS2 that they never had it so good - and they are lucky not to have characters where the colour clashes as you walk up to another character!

Long live Elite. May it never die.
Best game ever by miles.


Phil

 

[rosebarn]

one other thing...

Every single time I hear the Blue Danube I think of Elite!!!

 

[Dragonstar]

Every single time I hear the Blue Danube I think of Elite!!!

Welcome to the forums!

Same as me, Blue Danube or Hall of the Mountain King (from Frontier) gets me thinking of the Elite universe.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Yep, Blue Danube = Elite

Welcome to the forum.

As you will find your not alone when it comes to fond memories of Elite.

 

[Davidtq]

My introduction to elite didnt have the blue danube, for years my only elite docking noise was a metalic rain \ slurping noise which was nearly identical to the sound rapidly draining shields made. Used to get the heart going when manually docking particularly if I had a few vipers on my tail for something or another...

I believe my first introduction to the Blue danube was when my friend got FE2 on his amiga and I was spell bound by the new fangled version of elite... I believe the PC elite pus I got later in the "award winners" pack had the blue danub though, and that was the first version I ever got to elite with.

 

[Adrena1in]

...Gauntlet (Red Valkyrie shot the food!)... and Elite.

I'm 37 now...

Gauntlet was great, (preferred the Wizard myself!), but I'm the same age as you, (in fact, I turned 38 the other day...I forgot...it happens when you get older!), and agree that Elite really does rank as the best game ever. Though I'd choose Frontier: Elite 2, if I had to pick only two games that I was only ever allowed to play again, (the first being Unreal Tournament '99!). So perhaps Elite is third best ever really!

I guess when it was released you and I were at the age where we were most impressionable. I doubt any kids these days would find Elite or its sequels that much fun, what with their 64-bit consoles and GHz PC processors and games taking up hundreds of Megabytes of disk-space. They just don't appreciate how lucky we were!

Plus I always turned the music off in Frontier, so Blue Danube is my only reference, and I always visualise the Cobra Mk3 approaching and rotating whenever I hear that music.

Happy memories.

 

[wolfe]

Hi, i had elite on the good old spectrum, i must have played elite for 3 years. Me and my mate used to play together i piloted and he did the trading (my computer, my rules) . Greatest game ever.

He did accidently find a cheat for it though, i lent him my comp 1 night and next day our "character" had gone from being dangerous to elite, had infinite missiles and a cloaking device . I asked how he managed that ,his reply i got mad with the game and hit the comp (didn't break it either).

 

[Spacegamer]

Great story wolfe,played the Amstrad version myself.

Bought it from Amstrad Action mag iirc I think it was in the shops before I received my copy

But as fate would have it,they also sent me a free disk copy a few weeks later,still got that one.

 

[Michael Brookes]

I first played it on my old Acorn Electron, unfortunetly my mother had become addicted to Repton which meant I had to wait for her to start cooking tea in the evenings before I could get on the computer

Michael

 

[Sir.Tj]

I first played it on my old Acorn Electron, unfortunetly my mother had become addicted to Repton which meant I had to wait for her to start cooking tea in the evenings before I could get on the computer

Michael

I can see why your in the computer industry then Michael!

My Mum would have had a nervous breakdown if she had gone anywhere near a computer! Just the thought of it would have broken her out into a cold sweat!

 

[Steve O B Have]

LOL My first experience was with a little silver ghetto blaster hooked up to the back of a BBC B+ (with 64K sideways RAM) and waiting for the sodding game to load (which it wouldn't always do successfully) - many an hour spent watching hex numbers work their way up.

My poor old Beeb would then get played continuously until it over heated and the display would start corrupting with stars that wouldn't disappear or some of the lines of the ships staying on the screen. Eventually it would freeze and we'd have to turn it off and wait for half an hour or so to cool down before we could start the process all over. The worst part was that we could never save the game so we always started from scratch.

Later we got a 40/80 track floppy drive and our whole world changed... up until about 2 hours of gameplay and it would freeze again... rinse... repeat. If only I had know about putting higher feet on the Beeb to help the air circulate I might've made it to the elusive Elite

We were Acorn people all the way really BBC B+ (when I was 5), Archimedes A410 (when I was 11) then a Risc PC (when I was 16). I didn't actually get a home PC till I was about 21 which was one that I bought off my work. My first real PC is the one that I have at home that I've built myself for gaming. I was a Playstation boy for ages - what a brilliant piece of kit that was (and still is).

Gah - I feel old...

 

[Sir.Tj]

LOL My first experience was with a little silver ghetto blaster hooked up to the back of a BBC B+ (with 64K sideways RAM) and waiting for the sodding game to load (which it wouldn't always do successfully) - many an hour spent watching hex numbers work their way up.

My poor old Beeb would then get played continuously until it over heated and the display would start corrupting with stars that wouldn't disappear or some of the lines of the ships staying on the screen. Eventually it would freeze and we'd have to turn it off and wait for half an hour or so to cool down before we could start the process all over. The worst part was that we could never save the game so we always started from scratch.

Later we got a 40/80 track floppy drive and our whole world changed... up until about 2 hours of gameplay and it would freeze again... rinse... repeat. If only I had know about putting higher feet on the Beeb to help the air circulate I might've made it to the elusive Elite

We were Acorn people all the way really BBC B+ (when I was 5), Archimedes A410 (when I was 11) then a Risc PC (when I was 16). I didn't actually get a home PC till I was about 21 which was one that I bought off my work. My first real PC is the one that I have at home that I've built myself for gaming. I was a Playstation boy for ages - what a brilliant piece of kit that was (and still is).

Gah - I feel old...

Funny how you remember these things isn't it?

Started on a Spectrum 48k with a old cassette player with a wonky earphone lead. I remember having to sit very, very still just in case I caused the loading game to crash, worked my way through Vic 20, C64 then onto the almighty Amiga!!! then onto a 486SX thought I was the man when I upgraded the memory from 4mb to 8mb!! then over to the playstation the PS2, PSP. I have in recent years started collecting machines I've now got a *ahem* few Amigas, a panasonic 3DO, etc... Did have Elite on a Sony Clie Palm. that was great Elite in yer pocket!!! Got a reasonable PC now as well as access to my Sons DS when I can get away with it.

To quote Steve "Gah"

 

[Steve O B Have]

Funny how you remember these things isn't it?

Started on a Spectrum 48k with a old cassette player with a wonky earphone lead. I remember having to sit very, very still just in case I caused the loading game to crash, worked my way through Vic 20, C64 then onto the almighty Amiga!!! then onto a 486SX thought I was the man when I upgraded the memory from 4mb to 8mb!! then over to the playstation the PS2, PSP. I have in recent years started collecting machines I've now got a *ahem* few Amigas, a panasonic 3DO, etc... Did have Elite on a Sony Clie Palm. that was great Elite in yer pocket!!! Got a reasonable PC now as well as access to my Sons DS when I can get away with it.

To quote Steve "Gah"

Dirty old Vic 20, whilst I was at school we worked with Apple IIe's with green and orange monitors. There was a Vic parked in the corner that no-one knew how to use. I always wanted an Amiga 500 but my dad was always far keener on the Acorn machines - to be fair the RISC OS UI was infinitely nicer and faster than any PC interface at the time. My brother had an old tower PC that he had put together with a 386 processor - that's where I got introduced to Frontier - I then took up residency in his room - chucked a bit of music on (was never a huge fan of the game music - I can only hear BD a few times before it starts grating) and played for many an hour.

I never got to play with a 3DO but I did get to play with the ill fated Atari Jaguar and at the time thought it was pretty cool - unfortunately there was a PlayStation sitting right next with it with Soul Caliber playing - it never stood a chance

 

[Sir.Tj]

Dirty old Vic 20, whilst I was at school we worked with Apple IIe's with green and orange monitors. There was a Vic parked in the corner that no-one knew how to use. I always wanted an Amiga 500 but my dad was always far keener on the Acorn machines - to be fair the RISC OS UI was infinitely nicer and faster than any PC interface at the time. My brother had an old tower PC that he had put together with a 386 processor - that's where I got introduced to Frontier - I then took up residency in his room - chucked a bit of music on (was never a huge fan of the game music - I can only hear BD a few times before it starts grating) and played for many an hour.

I never got to play with a 3DO but I did get to play with the ill fated Atari Jaguar and at the time thought it was pretty cool - unfortunately there was a PlayStation sitting right next with it with Soul Caliber playing - it never stood a chance

The 3DO was a serious rival to the Playstation in terma of Graphics etc.. I think it was a lot more expensive than the PS which killed it off.

Steve, damn shame about you not having a Amiga, great bit of kit still about today..sort of, Whole OS fitting on a 720k Diskette, Bill Gates hang your head in shame!!!

 

[DrBaggy]

Ahh, cassette loading! We may get fed up with today's machines (my 770's just come back having lost all the data on the hard drive) but tape loading was so frustrating...
Did anyone see the Alan Sugar programme Sunday? the Amstrad was my second computer (after Sinclair ZX81) and the one I discovered Elite on, so very happy memories.
As you say TJ no Bloatware in those days. Anyone else did some hand-coding (in Fortran in those days)

 

[Spacegamer]

I ment to watch that show about sugar,the Amstrad was my third computer.Started with the rubber door stop (zx81)spent hours typing programes in from the mags nothing ever worked.

Then onto the vic 20 jet pack ya!!scott adams adventures

Then onto the Amstrad in 85 mercenary like Elite must have spent hours playing that game,get Dextra, the Hobbit,Marsport in fact any game by gargoyle games feeling rip off by buying an Ocean game.you could go down
the game shop every week and there be something new.

Sold the Amstrad in 89,then I think it was 91 when bought the Amiga 500+ then sold it the following year and bought a A1200,used that computer right up till 2001.T.j right greatest home computer ever.

Then I was forced onto the dark side of computing and it been downhill ever since

 

[Steve]

The 3DO was a serious rival to the Playstation in terma of Graphics etc.. I think it was a lot more expensive than the PS which killed it off.

Oh yeah, I had a 3DO as well. I remember having a racing game for it - possibly The Need For Speed - and thinking it was the best thing ever until I saw Ridge Racer on the PS.

Wing Commander, on the other hand, rocked

 

[Gibbon]

I still have my original copy of the 'Dark Wheel' floating around. Great story, somebody should make a movie lol

 

[Steve O B Have]

I still have my original copy of the 'Dark Wheel' floating around. Great story, somebody should make a movie lol

It'd be interesting to see what the new game engine is like and if it could be used to make a movie with that... Could be an interesting project.

 

[DrBaggy]

Then onto the Amstrad in 85 mercenary like Elite must have spent hours playing that game,get Dextra, the Hobbit,Marsport in fact any game by gargoyle games feeling rip off by buying an Ocean game.you could go down
the game shop every week and there be something new.

Marsport! I had forgotten that one, a great game. My memory of the Hobbit was "you are in a tunnel..." and incredibly long loading times.
Amusingly, my son in law just got Bejing Olympics on PSP3 and it was a prettier version of Daley Thompson's frantic joystick wiggling all those years ago!