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BBC Elite Information |
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Elite was written by David Braben and Ian Bell while they were still students at university. The game came out in 1984 for both the BBC and its sibling the Acorn Electron. Cassette and disk versions were available - the disk version featuring missions and extra ships. Elite was a triumph of game design in the first place, cramming all the necessary code into such a small amount of memory. But it was the unique open-ended nature of the game which would initially cause such a stir and as players got more involved it achieved classic status and was hailed in some quarters as arguably the best game ever made | |
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The player would start equipped with a Cobra MkIII space ship, 100 credits in cash and a combat rating of Harmless. By travelling between different star systems and trading goods between them, the aim was to amass cash to buy extra equipment for the ship, including lasers and missiles which could be used in combat. Hyperspacing into dangerous star systems brought that combat equipment into use, fending off and destroying pirate ships and bounty hunters. The player's combat rating would slowly improve through nine rankings until, eventually, they were given the ultimate combat status - ELITE |
With eight different galaxies, each with over 250 star systems of varying types, Elite was a huge game with much for the player to explore. Docking in each system was restricted to the space stations orbiting high above each planet and this was where all the trading was done. According to the type of industry prevalent in the system, some goods would be cheap to purchase while others would fetch high prices when sold. This was the basis of making money in the game. |  |
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A novel way of sustaining interest in the game, and also reducing piracy, was the running of an Order of Elite competition, with the best entries from each month being awarded a prize and entry into the national Elite tournament. Entry could only be made via the card supplied with the game and was an unusual feature of gaming in the 1980's |
Click on the image to the right to view the complete BBC micro (disc) Elite package |
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Over the next few years, enhanced versions of Elite were released to take advantage of the extra capabilities of the new BBC computers. As memory became less of a restriction, the game screens took on a new vibrancy even though the underlying games were much the same. |
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In 1997 a modified version of Elite was released called Elite-A. Although this came out long after the heyday of the BBC computer, it was a welcome addition to the Elite series, offering the player a choice of ships, an encyclopaedia of the galaxy and errands to run where payment depended on the time taken. There were many other changes, making this probably the best BBC Elite of all. |
Playing BBC Elite on your PCRunning BBC Elite on your PC can be done in two easy steps: | |