@~Once again, two reviews for Frontier from James Judge and Julian
@~Gregory.

                        Frontier - Elite 2
                          Gametek/Konami
    Available for ST (œ29.95), PC (œ39.95) and Amiga (œ29.95)

1. Reviewed on an STe by James Judge

Back in the days when the Speccy ruled supreme I heard of a game
called Elite that had made a large impression on most of the
other 8 bit owners, especially in the BBC crowd. I borrowed the
Spectrum version one night, tried to dock twice, blew up twice and
returned the tape the following day in abject misery - the game
was boring and far too difficult.

Then I got an ST and after getting bored with shoot-'em-ups I
decided to spend out œ6 and buy Elite from Special Reserve. I
received the strangely sized box, sat down in front of my computer
and figured out where I had gone wrong all those years back and
started to enjoy the game (I was trying to dock with the planet
instead of the station!).

After about 20 playing hours I had got to the ultimate ranking on
the game and left the box on my shelf until I wanted a quick blast
(as soon after you have got a few thousand credits and a well
kitted ship, the game turns into a 3D shoot-'em-up and a very easy
one at that).

The next time I heard the name 'Elite' was in the ST Format news
section where they said the new game following on from Elite
(Elite 2: Frontier as it as being called there and still is to
this day) was having its final polishing and would be ready in a
couple of months time.

I waited with baited breath.

One and a bit years later it was released for the ST (very soon
after the PC and Amiga versions, actually) and so I sent my œ24
off to Special Reserve who had put the game in their catalogue and
it was, according to their charts, their number one ST seller.
Two months and about eight 'phone calls later it arrived but I was
bed-ridden with a migraine but the following day I was able to
peel back the cellophane and look at the two disks, three booklets
and huge map that I got for my money (oh, and the registration
card).

Upon loading the game I was treated to some pretty decent music
(far better than the original and, as chip music goes, quite good
by today's standards) and a really good opening sequence of a ship
landing, taking off, hyperspace and then killing two ships before
just rotating in the middle of the screen.

I was then given five options to either start a new game at one of
three starports, load a saved game or load the last saved position
on my disk. I selected starting at Lave (as that was a place that
I knew well from the first game) and in about 30 seconds of
playing clocked up a good 200,000 credits fine and finally I was
blown apart by the base's laser and police.

I felt that I should sit down, digest some information and then
try the game again and so I did, getting very engrossed in the
game from then on.

So, what is the game about, then? Well, your Grandfather (who I
think was the star of Elite) has died and in his will he has left
all of his grandchildren 100 credits and a ship with which you can
do whatever you want. He does, though, want to give you the chance
to live the life that he led for most of his life as a trader
where he strived to become a revered Elite pilot.

The game starts with you in a dock with no cargo, a pitiful ship,
no previous trading or piloting experience, no idea as what to do
next and no docking clearance.

From here you can go and do literally anything. If you just want
to trade in goods from grain to narcotics you can. Or you can
become a bounty hunter, pirate, miner, explorer, an agent for the
Federation or Empire, an assassin, taxi service or an errand boy.
You can travel to any one of the 100,000,000,000 systems, battle
with pirates, the police or (if you have got a big enough ship)
even try and destroy a space station. You can hire crew members,
change ships (if you have enough money) upgrade your ship so that
only the most skilful pilot (or stupid) would have any chance
of touching you. You can be arrested, fined, have your reputation
damaged. You can try and become an Elite pilot or increase your
Federation or Empire ratings. You can do many of these things and
still you can save your position, turn the computer off and have a
nice drink at the end of the day.

The game is so large that you will never see all of it and, even
once you have got the latest 'buzz' game, you'll still be coming
back for more.

There are no real comparisons that can be made between Elite and
Frontier as they are two completely separate games with Frontier
being the better of the two. The graphics and music have been
upgraded ten fold, there is a lot more you can trade in, you can
upgrade your ship and even kill people.

Once you have started trading (probably in very tame items such as
animal meat and grain) you will want to start fighting. To do that
you must make sure that your ship won't blow apart from the first
shot that strikes you, has a good enough laser, a few missiles, a
scanner (so you can see where the enemy is) and if you want some
money for your efforts you had better get a radar scanner.

The only problem with all of those items is that they take up
valuable room. Each ship has got a certain limit on what it can
carry. Take the Cobra #3 which can only carry 80 tons. From this
80 ton capacity you have got to store an engine and enough fuel to
get you from A to B. That is what you can carry if you do want
about 30 tons left to fill up with cargo. If you want a laser,
scanner, radar mapper, 4 missiles and an autopilot (which is
almost essential in this game) you will be only left with twelve
tons in which to carry fuel and any other cargo that you want to
carry. Once again we are faced with a 'butter or guns' decision.

Once you have started to get to know the surrounding bases and
good trading routes you may want to start carrying messages and
small packages for people. Some of the errands are just little way
to make a couple of hundred more credits than you would normally
while others, which may earn you as much as 5,000 credits, are
quite dangerous with a deadly assassin dogging you - or even the
police!

After you have increased your Elite rating by killing a certain
number of ships (the rating is just the same as the original game
with ten ratings from Harmless through to Dangerous, Deadly and,
finally, Elite) you will be offered more dangerous (and
profitable) missions from both small, independent companies or
people to both the Federal and Imperial military. These new
missions range from carrying high class military documents to
killing people of importance, 'persuading' people to leave their
homes and spying missions where you are (from what I have heard)
given a camera to go on your ship!

All of these deals are carried out through a universal BBS which
has three main depots. The first is the shipyard where you can
trade in your ship, carry out repairs, buy upgrades and contact
the local police force to pay fines (or a bribe). The second is
the bulletin board where there are adverts for crew members that
are available, errand and assassination missions and notices from
the local military where you can get more missions. The third
section on the BBS is the stockmarket where you can deal in all of
the legal goods. If you have got illegal wares, you've got to go
to the bulletin board and look for a 'Goods bought and sold'
advert. But be careful, it may be a police cover.

Apart from the actual front end of the game (trading, combat etc.)
a LOT of work has gone in with all the technical aspects of the
game. Our system is mapped out in glorious 3D as accurately as
possible and so are all of the other known systems in our
vicinity.  True, the planets are just speculation (as they haven't
been discovered yet) but when you get a lot of technical
information on each body in each system from diameter to length of
day and even surface temperature it really does make up for a few
of the things that could have been added. All of the ships handle
as if they were real with inertia (ie. if you are going forwards
at 10,000 km/s and then turned your engine off, it would take a
while for you to slow down). Also you are given two speeds, your
set and actual. Everything that is technical is explained in a
small appendix but it isn't for the faint hearted (it took me a
good ten minutes before I understood just what the mechanics of
space flight were).

The graphics are really something. True, they are not detailed or
texture mapped (such as the graphics that appeared in Legends Of
Valour) but they are still very nice and well defined. Using a
very nice graphics engine the game chooses from the full palette
(512 colours for STFM owners and 4,096 colours for STe and Amiga
owners) the best colours that would fit each frame. This leads to
some very nice lighting effects with lights that flash on and off
on stations etc. lighting up panels and other little tricks like
that. Also there is a lot of attention to detail from smoke clouds
coming from rockets to variable thruster flames coming from all of
your thrusters (which, when docking, looks very nice).

The only problem is that if you have got a lot of detail on screen
at once (particularly over a planet) the screen update is very
slow and jerky. This problem is eradicated (to a certain degree)
with higher spec machines (such as the TT and A1200) and also if
you have got expanded memory (2 megs or more). In spaceflight and
combat, though, it isn't too much of a problem.

The sound is OK. Nothing too great but it could have been a lot
worse. You have got four pieces of classical music which can play
all the time or during certain events such as just after
hyperspacing, during docking or during combat.

The game is controlled either by the keyboard, keyboard and mouse,
joystick and mouse or just the mouse (my favourite) so everyone's
tastes are covered (a small hint, though. If you do want to use
just the mouse, make sure your joystick isn't plugged in. If it is
you won't be able to control the ship with it, just the menus
etc.).

Now, onto the down side of things. Bugs. Urgh. What a horrible
thought, a great game suffering from bugs. Oh well, can't be
helped I s'pose. The Amiga version has got the most bugs with the
most notable being that you can't mine (although for registered
users, Gametek are supplying a patch). The PC is the next worst
off with lock-ups happening during hyperspace. Finally there is
the ST version. As it was the last version to be programmed all of
the other bugs were ironed out (and, unfortunately, some very
nifty cheats!). There are two still present that I have found. One
is that if you analyse your own hyperspace cloud the game crashes.
The second has happened to me and James Jillians once, so it may
not be too serious. To cut a long story short (it is strange the
way the bug manifests itself) when you dock all your thrusters are
damaged and you can't fix any of them.

To round up this very long review of this very good game. If you
are looking for an enjoyable and difficult challenge this is the
game to buy. If you had the first game and thought 'hmmm, it's
alright I s'pose' you'll love this version. If you are into the
trading game this is the ultimate trader. If you just want to have
fun this is the toy you must try to break. In all it is excellent.
The five years in production has really shown off and the end
result is something that you can lose yourself in completely for
hours on end.  Saying that, though, there are still lots that can
(and should) be added so I hope to see (in 1999) Elite 3 with
better graphics, better use of comms and a multi-player option.

Well done David Braben. Another golden game from him.

NOTE:

If you are an Frontier player, whether you have just started or
regard yourself as a pro, I'd like to get in contact with you to
pass on hints, tips and cheats about the game. If you are
interested drop me a line at: 33 Chidley Cross Road, East Peckham,
Near Tonbridge, Kent, TN12 5BX. I'd especially like to know a PC
player.

@~And here's one now ...
------------------------------------------------------------------



2. Reviewed by Julian Gregory on a PC

Elite, the name that sold more BBC computers in the 1980s than any
other piece of software.

There have been rumours of a follow up to Elite for many years. I
think it took 3 years for the program to see the light of day.
Having reached ELITE twice I have been so looking forward to the
new version to see how it would compare.

For those people who don't know Elite it was a space exploration
game in which you could earn credits by trading items such as
luxuries, gold and illegal goods between planets. You could also
earn credits by killing pirates. You had a rating which was based
on your combat ability. I still remember the feeling of
exhilaration when I got to Elite status. So much so that I went
through it all again not long after.

So how does the new version compare?

The program is supposed to include the entire solar system with
all the stars in their correct positions in relation to each
other. Apparently, due to the author's interest in astronomy, all
the planets and moons of our galaxy can be seen (around
100,000,000,000). In view of this, surprisingly the game comes on
only one disk, particularly when the trend nowadays seems to be to
have an increasing number of disks.

There are 3 start positions, one of which is the recommended one.
Another is good old Lave, presumably for those homesick for the
original.

The same old trading is still there, although the number of items
which can be traded has increased.

Many people had problems in docking in the original. Elite 2
allows you to use automatic pilot which will do this for you. The
spaceship you start out with has the automatic pilot already
installed. The original made you earn sufficient credits to be
able to buy an automatic pilot. But in order to do that you must
trade which means that you must have learned how to dock!! In this
game knowing how to dock does not have the same significance and I
have always let the computer do it for me.

One major change is that there are now 2 types of superpowers, the
Federation and the Empire. You can perform tasks for each,
although such ranks are supposed to be mutually exclusive as each
does not like its officers working for the 'opposition'. You are
given a rank for services rendered. Which brings me on the subject
of missions. When you dock at a space station you are given
the opportunity of looking through the various missions and
requests on the bulletin board. Missions can vary from delivering
parcels, to transporting people, to assassination attempts. There
are varying degrees of difficulty attached to each mission which
is reflected in the sum of money on offer.

As before credits earned can be spent on upgrading your ship with
various refinements or by buying a different ship altogether.
You have to make a decision fairly early on as to whether to want
a peaceful life as a trader or a more exciting, but probably
shorter one as an assassin. Whichever one you choose there will be
a ship to suit you. The larger ones require a crew of between 1
and 11 plus yourself. Having a crew brings its own problems in
that you will have to find enough money to pay them each week. I
have not yet found out what happens if you do not pay them,
presumably they go on strike!

Flying can be done by keyboard, mouse or joystick. I always find
these sorts of game better with a joystick. But when I tried to
use one I had no reaction when I pushed the joystick to the right.
A letter to Gametek produced a reply that I could compensate by
pushing the stick to the left when starting the game.  Somehow
that seems unsatisfactory and should be unnecessary in a game
which has taken so long to produce. I now have approx 510,000
credits after changing ships twice and have not yet fought any
battles. How I get on then remains to be seen. The manual does say
that manoeuvring the ship in combat will take some practice as it
is not possible to suddenly change direction and expect to move on
the new heading immediately. In space, inertia means that there is
a time-lag before the ship can turn onto the new heading. This
means that turning in combat will be difficult, at least at first.
I should be interested in hearing from any one who could give me
some short cut tips.

In conclusion, I feel that some people may not like Frontier
because it is unlike most other similar games available in that
there is no ending. It is so open-ended that you could continue to
play until boredom overtakes you. However I have greatly enjoyed
what I have seen so far and look forward to reaching ELITE status
again.









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