| Credits | |
| Published: |
1993, Gametek
    |
| Design: | David Braben |
| Coder: | David Braben, Peter J. M. Irvin |
| Graphics: | David Braben, Jonathan Griffiths, Peter J. M. Irvin, Paul Mitchell |
| Musician: | Dave Lowe |
| Information | |
| Hardware: | OCS, ECS |
| Disks: | 2 |
| License: | Commercial |
| Language: | English |
| Players: | 1 Only |
| Relationship: | Also available for CD32   Sequel to Elite |
| Notes: | Documentation: Kathy Dickinson, David Massey, Moira Sheehan, Gary Penn Representation: Jacquie Lyons |
| Categorization | |
| Genre: | Simulation |
| Subgenre: | Space |
| Tags: | 3d, alien, shooting, shop, space, strategy, trading |
| Magazine Reviews | |
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Added by Kim Lemon on Sep 5, 2005. Viewed 58563 times.
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Read review by nathey
Graphics: 10 ‧
Music: 8 ‧
Playability: 9 ‧
Overall: 9
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Save to My OriginalsI have completed this game 
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This was another of those "hello, this is next stage in game evolution" moments when I first saw it in 1994. The whole Milky Way on two disks? Jesus! And unlike the previous Elites it's using real star names (well ok, 99% of the galaxy beyond the 50-100ly neighbourhood around Sol was procedurely generated nonsense starnames like "Bucdontif" all over again), and fully populated realistic star systems with many planets and moons, and even sub moons, and asteroid belts, and multiple star systems, and proper spectral classes! No more nothing but single G-class stars with just one inhabited planet and one station as the only docking place. You could now land on planetary bases! Even land rough on planetary surfaces! That's something that even "Elite Dangerous" (which was a ripoff to start with - David Braben turned scumbag without Ian Bell!) still does not do here in 2021 after seven years of continual improvement and DLCs! I couldn't believe the difference between this and previous Amiga Elite only five years earlier. You can now buy and sell ships, no longer are you stuck with the Cobra MkIII, there's more ships and weapons and ship systems/customisations than ever.
Shame the frame rates were so SLOW. Especially when flying on planetary surface areas with detailed cities.
And once you started noticing all the bugs, and terrible AI, and poor ship combat, the amazment started to wane.
Still this was one of the boldest computer game quantum leaps in history.
View all comments (124)
Unpolished masterpiece which is full of bugs. It's impressive what can be fitted on one DD floppy disk. Nevertheless, it's a joy to play this game. Enjoyment starts with 030+ CPUs but 020 with some fast ram will do too.
View all comments (258)
I can not guess at how many hours I sunk into this game. Happily it was current while I was at (art) college, so no real damage done!
Fingers crossed that the new Elite is made - currently on Kickstarter - go and pledge to get this great game made for modern hardware!!!
The open world nature was just too engrossing, go and do whatever you want - but as mentioned before, save often as my amiga used to crash or freeze quite a bit. It was worth it though as it was so fast to load and get back into.
View all comments (7)
For a treat go to the system map and zoom out, keep zooming out, and out and out, the planets will turn to stars, the stars to the galaxys arm, and in the end you will see the whole galaxy and where you are in it. The scope of the game is unbelievable.
Although then stop zooming out, because you will have endless galaxies next to each other in a quadratic grid , which kinda ruins the immersion.
View all comments (1)
One of my favourite Amiga games. The first time I docked at the space station around Bernard's Star, it opened up a whole new world.
Horrendous frame rates on my A500+ but for once that really didn't matter. This game was bigger than silly little frame rates. Brilliant! 9/10
View all comments (31)
This game... An unpolished gem among the countless other mediocre games. It has some bugs, but those are hardly game-ruining, as long as you remember to save often.
I sunk many, many hours trading medicines and other stuff between countless systems back in the days, building my one--man empire.
The atmosphere was great, the game engine was excellent (for the time) and the universe was your oyster to explore and exploit. You can do nearly anything you please in this game.
The game happens in real time, so if something is about to happen somewhere, it happens, whether you are there or not to reap the profit from wars, pandemics, famine or drought.
The difficulty is just right. Space combat was hard with the Newtonian physics, the weapons overheated in a prolonged battles and the missiles were your worst nightmare if you didn't have ECM, and the unshielded hulls couldn't take much damage at all before collapsing. The starting ship, a light fighter was woefully inadequate for anything but courier missions in nearby systems, but after a few missions you can buy yourself a small, lightly-armed freighter with better range and start proper trading, until you finally succeed in securing a big ship with a massive cargo hold, with shield generators and big lasers.
All this, on a SINGLE floppy.
If you love the genre I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
View all comments (1)
When i played this game i've always seemed to have this one in particular problem, to get af the ground and DONT shoot something that upsets the some what pissed cops
When i figured out that part the entire galaxy opened up for me, and i was traveling lightyear with a click of fingertip.
I did like this game even thou i didn't get so far, but still i start it up from time to time just for fun.
So for everyone thats wants something to do the next 10,000hours you know what to do right....?
View all comments (16)
This is madness. Elite on Steroids. You have an *entire galaxy* to explore, on one Amiga disc. This is one of the last 100% assembler-coded masterpieces. Procedural content generation. Newtonian physics (you can even slingshot around a star), seamless transition from planet surface to space to wormhole to planet. Trading, pirate fighting, asteroid mining, skimming the surface of a sun; it's all there. The 3D engine is amazing, it can even render round polygons (bezier curves), this fundamentally improves the graphics and Frontier Elite 2 is the only game on the Amiga (the only game on *any* platform, even PS2) known to me that can do that (though it has a very low framerate on standard A500).
David Braben is one of the few game designers of that era still around, I was very much looking forward to The Outsider, though that apparently became vaporware after several years in development hell, which is too bad.
Frontier Elite 2 is the the best space trading/fighting simulation game in existence, and also a dead end; there were a few other games which tried this formula, like Privateer on the PC, but generally the entire genre does not exist anymore.
Very steep learning curve, but worth it.
View all comments (99)
One of the greatest games ever. Eventually becomes boring when you got too much money or a too powerful space ship (after weeks of playing, that is). It was better on the Amiga than on the PC because it was too difficult on the PC to be much fun.
View all comments (9)
I've been playing DarkStar One on Windows these weeks. A good sandbox space game, but it ends up being more of a tribute to Frontier some 15 years later, rather than an evolution (actually, several elements were noticeably simplified). Frontier is still the most complex and vast game I've seen in this genre.
I guess I'll give a try at other modern games like Terminus, Freelancer and the X series.
View all comments (279)
"Frontier" is a game like no other. It's BIG, very BIG. And gives you complete freedom to explore the galaxy as a merchant, soldier or pirate. Some games have tried to come close but none have succeeded as even today, no other game can match "Frontier".
The game is not without its flaws, however, as a plot is almost nonexistent, and while you can land on almost any planet in the universe, you can't actually do much there. Graphics are still superb though rather low-polygonal in today's standards, of course.
The game requires some work to get into it but it is very rewarding. I suggest you play the PC version if possible as it is the smoothest version.
View all comments (51)
I could never get the ship to another planet no matter how many times i read the manual and i still cant do it reading an FAQ online.
Overrated.
View all comments (126)
I may be not patient enough but: how the hell are the controls? (I tried it with WinUAE) the game starts and I can not fly anywhere, just moving left right up down. And what about the mission? But surely I'm just too dumb to play games of this genre...
But I would be thankful if anyone can help me with it, because overall I'm a real shitty gamer.
View all comments (43)
Me and a friend of mine lost so many hours in this game. He had it for the PC and I had it on my A1200, and we'd go to my place, play it for hours. When my mom chased us out, we'd go to his place, and play it more hours on his computer instead
View all comments (23)
Simply amazing amount of freedom in this game... You have the whole universe to explore and i really mean that! This game really pushes the limits of the Amiga, and i did play this all the time on my A500... It was sluggish with all the detail on, but i just enjoyed exploring so much that i didn't even care!
These days we have been spoiled by faster machines, so if you are going to play this make sure you have at least an A1200, but at the time of its release... WOW! No other space game gives you the freedom to go where you wish, do what you wish in an open ended universe!
The only area that is lacking in this game is sfx and music... But that never stopped my sleepless nights playing this one!
View all comments (178)
A friend of mine introduced me to this game, which at first i thought was neither here or there but when i tried it myself, wow, amazing! This game was just incredible, the amount of freedom along with the amount of missions was just staggering. You had option to literally become almost whatever you like, from bounty hunting to doing spying missions with the imperial forces - this was just breathtaking - AND it was all on a few floppies, what a feat!!!...
This game kept me up well into the nights and days, i remember i used to play at least 5-8hrs a day and couldn't stop playing it! Lol
Think GTA in space and you'd get the idea!
If only it was remade in HD on the gaming boxes we have these days eh?!
Overall then, an absolute classic, digital space crack at its most finest!
View all comments (17)
I used to love this game, the sheer size of it was awesome. I remember the star map you got with the game was poster sized and I think I only visisted a handful of worlds. The most annoying thing about the game was the copy protection, which was a serious bummer once you lost the game manual. Still an endless classic!
View all comments (6)
This game is responsible for hours and hours of "wasted time"! Originally, I bought it because it looked like a space/flight simulator from the demo on Aminet, though it turned out to be more of an RPG/space/flight sim. After 1 hour of playing the game (on an A1000 of all things, a bit choppy but still playable with low graphics), I decided to buy an A1200, and a 060 card. Had great fun telling "space stories" of my characters adventures with my brother, who also bought the game. One of the most memorable recollections I have was my brother and I conducting a recon mission with a Panther Clipper (really big, lumbering, ship. Probably the worst choice for such a mission), and rough-landing it in the middle of the "secret" base to take the picture! (I had the throttle controls, my brother handled to 20MW laser turrets) If you haven't played this yet, make sure you have all day to do so. Its that addicting!
View all comments (2)
Having never had the pleasure of playing this game, reading the comments, I would like nothing better than to indulge. Wish I had as much free time as I used to!
View all comments (35)
My favorite amiga game of all time. Simple yet engrossing. Intricate yet massive. An absolute gem and a game every amiga lover should play. Genius
View all comments (9)
For all its faults, still a huge achievement of game design, and one that still fuels the imagination.
View all comments (19)
I bought this the day it came out and ended up pulling 'a 4 day sickie' from work.
How many Xbox 360 / PS3 games are so good that you phone your employer with a sudden case of Flu?
Nuff Said!
View all comments (1)
I really love this game... A universe at your service and great variety of ships for buy. One of the best game i ever play.
Graphics: 6
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 6
Addictive: 9
View all comments (112)
The game was fantastic, until the moment you got a superb ship (Puma or Panther), and military ranking. Then something broke in it and it became boring quickly.
View all comments (779)
Yep, this one owned me for ages. I hated many aspects of the flight mechanics, I don't care how accurate they were trying to be, it was often frustrating. Still, that whole universe there to explore was an amazing draw. Is there other game like this one today? Maybe the X games on PC? Even those seem to be lacking behind Elite and Frontier. This one (and Elite) are still the damn bench mark and that's all there is to it! Btw, I hated the PC version of this. It was much better on Amiga. And yep, you needed a 1200 for sure. I remember the speed boost from a500 to a1200 and being quite happy!
9/10
View all comments (288)
I remember playing the demo on an old Amiga 1000 I had, and being impressed. I played it on my '060 1200, and still bring it up once in a while. (But only when I have a few hours to waste
View all comments (2)
Universe on a diskette... Nothing less, nothing more
View all comments (56)
To the reviewer: yes, Braben was right, there is a 3.7 million solar mass black hole in the center of our Galaxy - and there is one in the center of almost every other galaxy we see. The game was great, but I had an Amiga500...
View all comments (15)
4 days without sleep, enough said.
View all comments (7)
I enjoyed this one quite much. There would have plenty of more to be seen though. I did not get so far. I loved those big space stations and inhabited planet landscapes.
View all comments (250)
I actually like the original more but this game is still pure genius and it's amazing how a whole world fit on just two discs. The old Amiga 500 doesn't handle it so well but pop it into something hotter like 1200 at 060 and it plays great!
View all comments (21)
I followed the progress of this game in The One for Amiga - I even cut out all the individual preview articles and bound them together. I remember the day it came out I asked my brother to pick it up for me from town, and he came back saying it was sold out. He was winding me up and produced it from a bag just in time to stop me weeping like a baby. As far as the game itself went... I can't deny I was disappointed with the performance - the A500 just wasn't up to the task - but I lived this game for months and it almost met my expectations. I remember I only hired crew with the surname Solo, and I ended up with a Panther Clipper manned entirely by Solos.
Frontier is still the template for what I'd consider to be one of my perfect games. Modern efforts like the X series have bogged the genre down in minutiae. It's this fact that gives me pause where Elite IV is concerned.
View all comments (3)
I only enjoyed the galactic map
View all comments (100)
Didn't like this game at all! Never got into it and it bored me from the first minute i've played it.
View all comments (61)
Me and my mate Tucker would talk about this game non stop at school. We LIVED Frontier Elite II and played it non-stop. But then you needed to if you wanted to get anywhere, buy a bigger ship and fit loads of cool lasers and shield generators to it. I loved playing taxi and ferrying people, often dangerous ones from one system to another, getting shot at as I went. Of course it wasn't perfect, but come on guys & gals, OUR GALAXY, on one floppy disk! I have word documents that won't fit on one floppy disk! And for those of you not quite impressed yet, Amiga disks were only 880KB, not even 1.44MB!
View all comments (64)
Enormous and open-ended trading game set in a halfway realistic (unlike the sub 'Hitchiker's Guide' stuff in 'Elite') galaxy. It's still hard to forgive some of the bugs, the poorer (if more 'real') space combat, the way the thing dragged to almost a halt if the Police went after you and the lacklustre sound. This is still a great game that I spent ages on but it's undoubtably flawed.
View all comments (145)
Too nerdy for me, sorry, but still a brilliant space game like there are, yet today, only a handful. I remember the awesome 3D space map! And look at the shots! 3D clouds, in 1993! Bravo Mr Braben
View all comments (100)
Marvellous game! I still really like the fantastic graphics. This game offers a whole universe in a nutshell. (89%)
View all comments (809)
A brilliant game and quite an achievement! When you consider a whole universe with physics is mapped out from a small (memory resident) executable file, then you have to respect the work that went into this. The movie style intro really sells the game to you, which in itself is absorbing and open-ended providing plenty of last-ability. The only downside is a lack of CPU power hindered enjoyment back in the day - not a problem now however! Great stuff!
View all comments (5)
Still my favourite Amiga game. I loved the freedom of action and flexibility the game offered- I found it a great stress relief. What I wouldn't give for a bang up to date version using the same map and premise..........
View all comments (24)
Well it'sa good game, immersive and deep, but there is not a quest, and after you've done enough money, it begin to get boring, I still miss Space Rogue, and it seems no game reached its class yet...
8/10
View all comments (192)
At least 030 was required to get the game running at its best, although definitely playable on a A1200+Fast Ram. This game took Elite and expanded upon it in almost every way. This is a true megagame and online gaming will not come of age until an online mulitplayer Elite is released. The feeling of exploring an entire galaxy is incredible with lots to do and see, the addition being able to land on moons, planets & asteroids opened the game up even further, AFAIK, there still isn't a game out there today that comes close to vastness that this game offers, if you ever wanted to know what it would be like to explore the stars, then this game is the closest thing to it yet. Elite IV can't come soon enough!!
View all comments (97)
Never played this as much as my friends (which where nuts about it),
but I still am facinated by the way it is set up.
I can play this today or in a dekade...
Takes time to get into, but even harder to get out of
View all comments (48)
I really tried to like this game, but it had serious framerate issues that rendered it unplayable and, quite frankly, was boring. Nice graphics, except for the "realistic" portraits (very indicative of the mindset behind the game).
View all comments (15)
I never like Elite 1 mainly because the bad graphics. This one however got me stuck.
View all comments (14)
This is the one game that really had me locked up behind my Amiga for weeks... The scope of the playingfield was unlimited (I still am in awe at the amount of planets and stations that could be visited) and the possibilities endless. Truly a masterpiece in its own right.
View all comments (69)
I have never managed to go with the flow of others opinions about this game. It has never sucked me in. I tried many times...
View all comments (750)
This was the last game I purchased before graduating to the realm of ms-dos. I must fully agree with markpapdakis here: elite II was amazingly addictive, and sufficiently updated in comparison to the original (such as entering a planet's atmosphere) to warrant an appealing measure of longevity. I found out much later that the game had been almost universally thrashed by reviewers: though arguably far from perfect, it was entertaining nonetheless and that's all a good game has to be.
View all comments (54)
This is one breath-taking game. I remember spending weeks on this one. Eventually, it would get a bit repetitive , but still extremely addictive. Become anyone you want to become, take on entire universe, live your life in outer-space. Highly recommended!
View all comments (7)