RIP Philip Castle (20/10/1942-20/02/2026) - the British airbrush artist who, amongst his amazing catalogue of work, created the iconic artwork for Elite in 1984. This is arguably the most recognisable game art of all time.
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FrontierAstro
@frontierastro@universeodon.com
mastodon 4.6.8Dedicated to Elite, Frontier and Astronomy
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Joined August 10, 2024
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Unlike today, in 1993 the quality of printed game artwork was still far superior to actual in-game graphics. Nevertheless, CU Amiga magazine's hype machine went into overdrive for #FrontierElite2 in the November edition. Even the rolling demo would "stun you into insanity"!
The #CommodorePlus4 computer could not be described as much of a success commercially, but fortunately #Elite can be played on it. This conversion is identical to the #Commodore64 version, with the added benefit of Mark Moxon's flicker-free graphics. https://tinyurl.com/ElitePlus4
If you still enjoy playing #FrontierElite2 you might want to take a look at #glFrontier by Tom Morton. The basic game is unchanged, but the graphics are far clearer and it runs much faster than the original.
https://tinyurl.com/FrontierElite2
Sometimes it's the little touches in a game that make it special. For example, in FFED3D-AJ, the church clock tallies with the local system time on the screen. Then there's the mysterious blue/green power source on the side of an orbiting space station 😍 https://tinyurl.com/FFED3D
When Frontier First Encounters launched in 1995, it was a DOS-only game in 320x200 resolution. Some 30 years later, we can all enjoy the same brilliant game in much greater detail, thanks to some enterprising and talented coders. Details of FFED3D are at https://tinyurl.com/FFED3D-AJ
Elite for the #AcornArchimedes was arguably the ultimate version of the original game. The physical items included were certainly unsurpassed, including 24 Ship Data Cards. The long-held tradition of naming ships in the game after snake species was no longer adhered to.
If the Tatung Einstein version of Elite looks suspiciously like the Spectrum version, it's because it is a direct port from the Sinclair machine. The retail box was actually the Spectrum box, with stickers covering the logo where needed. The manual was also from the Spectrum!
Was Frontier Elite 2 on the #AtariST the best game ever released on that machine? Atari ST Review magazine certainly liked it, in their February 1994 edition. "Quite superb - as close to the perfect game as you'll find!" Overall score of 96%.
People will argue long into the night over whether #Spectrum Elite or #Commodore64 Elite was the best. With its more colourful display and extra ships, the C64 version probably edges it, although the Spectrum game did boast the LensLok protection system 😁
FrontierAstro Top 5 Elites 4. Commodore 64 Elite - An excellent version, which maintained the classical BBC style while adding extra colour and the "Trumbles" mission. Graphical flicker can now be eliminated (see ALT text) and the full range of ships/space stations is present.
Perhaps the other surprise omission from the FrontierAstro Top 5 Elites was the #ZXSpectrum version. A lot of people loved this back in the day, but to me it looked drab and ran too slowly. Somehow it lacked the magic of #BBCElite and was inferior to the #C64 version too. Sorry!
It's not Elite or Frontier, but I've installed Freelancer HD on my PC and I'm looking forward to spending some time on it. I played it on release in 2003 and it's amazing how the game and its characters are still familiar despite not having experienced the game for over 20 years!
Elite for the #AcornElectron often gets a bad press for its cut-down features, compared to the BBC and other versions. But instead of focusing on what it lacks, we should be amazed that the game was able to run on the little machine at all, thanks to David Braben & Ian Bell!
If you're wondering why #ArcElite didn't make it into my top 5 Elites, it's because I've had limited experience playing it and I didn't care much for the 16-bit versions anyway. Here's my complete Top 10 - from the note on my phone I used while I agonised over the final order! 😁
It's been a while since I posted my entire collection of Elite games (see the ALT text to identify each one). There have been few additions of late, due to crazy eBay prices. Rarest versions? Tatung Einstein and MSX. Still to find? Spectrum Elite Opus disc version (even rarer!)
The 1990s really was a golden age for computer games. Big box releases complemented the games perfectly, none more so than #FrontierElite2 (1993) with its instruction manual, star systems gazetteer, game world fiction and - of course - that beautiful star map 😍
In the 1980s, 3 years was a long time in the development of computer games. So when #MSXElite was released in 1987, it demonstrated a number of improvements over the originals. A fast, colourful display with all the ships and secret missions made this a top conversion.
Here's a rarity - a Portuguese version of #FrontierElite2 with all the printed material in Portuguese. As far as I can tell, the game is in English unfortunately. Sadly, I'm still scratching my head trying to find a way to install the game and run it through DOSBox 🤔
Elite for the #CommodoreAmiga improved on the original in virtually every way, with fast, colourful graphics, secret missions and exciting gameplay. Somehow though, it lacked both the x-factor and wow factor of the 8-bit versions, probably because games had moved on by 1988.
In 1986, Superior Software acquired the rights to selected Acornsoft products. The following year they released re-branded versions of #Elite but due to the design of the new game boxes, the Dark Wheel novella and ships poster were not included.