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Let's hope that Elite: Dangerous (the game that made the wait for Duke Nukem Forever seem like a couple of seconds) is next.

Look at all the tie fighter input commands and try stuffing them on a console controller; from system controls, to firing switches and modes, to wingmate commands, to identification system, to target switching, to speed control, all these mechanics were utilized during every play (which is why it was a great game, it actually had you utilizing everything with constant purpose).

These?

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/...

Tie fighter was the new standard for all future Space Sim

I'm laughing because Tie Fighter is no more a "sim" than Sublogic's Jet or F15 Strike Eagle on PC, or Colony Wars on the PSone was. DCS, X-Flight, those are sims. Tie Fighter? Not a "sim", but it tries to pretend it is.

The only way you can try is through modifiers, which wouldn't work because they kill response time and increase missclicks.

Modifiers don't kill response time. PC gamers have been using them for years. What is holding down a key and using WASD to run or slowly creep, other than using modifiers.

These are the controls for the PS4 version of Elite Dangerous, which is pretty much the same as the PC version (I think the only thing PS4 users are missing is the option for custom voices):

https://support.frontier.co.uk...

You'll notice that the PS4 controller touchpad instead of being used as just one button, is used as 4. Also you can use the gyro sensor for headlook.

This is what Yahtzee himself says about your "PC Master Race" attitude:

"It was intended to be ironic, to illustrate what I perceived at the time to be an elitist attitude among a certain kind of PC gamer. People who invest in expensive gaming PCs and continually spend money to make sure the tech in their brightly-lit tower cases is up to date. Who actually prefer games that are temperamental to get running and that have complicated keyboard interfaces, just because it discourages new or 'casual' players who will in some way taint the entire community with their presence. I meant it as a dig."

He also has said he should have named elitist PC Gamers "PC Gaming Dick Slurp All-Stars"

Let's have a look at Frontier's Elite Dangerous (*), one of the leading VR games currently available:

The minimum (not recommended) specs demand at least an Intel Core i7-3770K or an AMD FX 4350 and 16GB of RAM. Again though, it’s the GPU recommendation that really makes us quake, as it’s demanding at least a GTX 980 with 4GB of RAM or better.

The lack of an AMD recommendation is bizarre, especially since there was one for the CPU. For comparable 980 performance though, you’re looking at a Fury card from AMD at least (thanks TechReport).

That means that if you don’t have one of these cards already, you’re looking at around a $500 spend on top of the purchase price of the game and any more upgrades you may need to do. They also show the big jump in performance required to run something like Elite Dangerous in VR. By comparison, its non-VR variant (available now, here) requires just a GTX 470 and a quad core CPU of any type to run.

The reason for the big jump in hardware requirements isn’t of course just to do with rendering two versions of the same content, but concerns the frame rate. Commercial VR will require frame rates in excess of 90 FPS at all times.

(Source)

This game is about to be released on PlayStation too, from the FAQ:

Will Elite Dangerous support PlayStation®VR?

Elite Dangerous is a flagship VR game on PC so of course, VR is important to us. It’s definitely something we’re looking into, but we have nothing to announce for launch.

(*) The game that made waiting for Duke Nukem Forever seem like a twinkling: it was announced in 1998 (as Elite 4) and released in December 2014.

Yeah, as it turns out, "from time to time" means (in the dev's words): "At the moment it's whenever you need to conduct a server moderated transaction like trading." and "The servers handle more than just the data, they handle all the key processes for interaction in the game, so trading, mission generation and background simulation to name a few." Anecdotally, in the beta at least, the client apparently lasts between 2 and 5 seconds if you pull your 'Net connection. The enormous rage-thread about this on Frontier's forum is hither: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/... (is at nearly 500 pages now). Another useful thread to check out is this one: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/... which just has stuff the company has had to say since the whole thing blew up (although they haven't posted since Saturday).

Yeah, as it turns out, "from time to time" means (in the dev's words): "At the moment it's whenever you need to conduct a server moderated transaction like trading." and "The servers handle more than just the data, they handle all the key processes for interaction in the game, so trading, mission generation and background simulation to name a few." Anecdotally, in the beta at least, the client apparently lasts between 2 and 5 seconds if you pull your 'Net connection. The enormous rage-thread about this on Frontier's forum is hither: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/... (is at nearly 500 pages now). Another useful thread to check out is this one: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/... which just has stuff the company has had to say since the whole thing blew up (although they haven't posted since Saturday).

Who's the best game programmer?

Easy: Braben and Bell who wrote 'Elite'. This game was so far ahead of its time it was simply unbelievable. It was one of (if not the) first true 3D game and contained 8 galaxies of 255 stars on a machine with 32kB of memory. It also introduced true "sandbox" gameplay. It might not stand up to today's standards and the sequels, while great games, were nowhere near as revolutionary, although it remains to be seen how Elite: Dangerous turns out - I have my fingers crossed!

So, no matter how you spin it, there is no way that you can deny that they were true Elite programmers! ;-)

Yeah i think it has 8 galaxies with 256 star systems in each all in 64K

Errr.... no. The BBC Micro had 32K, but in the mode Elite ran in the screen was eating about 20K of that. So it had 8 galaxies with 256 star systems in each - each with names, systems of governance, markets, et cetera - about twenty different ship types, and the physics and rendering engines - all in less than 14K.

I still think that's awesome. And, while I'm very impressed with what I've seen of No Man's Sky, the procedural universe of Elite Dangerous looks even more spectacular.

Full disclosure - I spent most of my final year of university playing Elite.

Have you seen the new Elite from David Braben?
It's in Alpha at the moment (testing of limited scenarios), Beta is expected after another 2 Alpha rounds (6-8 weeks?) and a launch later this year.

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

Videos etc of real gameplay are up on the site.
Personally, it's enough that I've actually bought and installed Windows for the first time in 15 years...

SC is already getting overhyped beyond means, and ship sales are just adding fuel to the fire. This decision alone from CIG has been huge turn off for many players to check it out, because while sandbox space sim doesn't have special "win" scenarios, still it's gives huge advantage right out start at the game for people with bought ships.

I personally don't like this huge in-game assets sale. I know SC fans argue it's for supporting SC development, but...seriously. If you are so curious to support game, do it without getting ship back in return. This is not best advertisment for crowdfunding, because it reminds a pre-order gifts which lot of people loath.

Also SC feature set boasted by fans aren't that unique - for example "Elite: Dangerous" with their current development docs (see archive of Development Decision Forum here http://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36) looks more detailed and nuanced that SC - still SC gets more hype because of involved people trying to get their friends buy ships.

I also prefer ED ship design (can be seen in-game engine trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE8B4KptyVI) comparing to SC "planes in space" (don't getting those "car ad" type videos for ships either, only one of them is done ok).

And of course sequel to the game who started it all - Elite: Dangerous, who is in development, and planned to be released in March next year.

More information https://elite.frontier.co.uk/

The graphics engine seems to be done, as there are some demo videos on the website of Frontier Development (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/). My impression is that the graphics quality does not quite reach that of an AAA game, but is good enough.

I don't want a 3D game, I want giant, high-resolution sprite filling the screen! Whoever decided that 2D games aren't good enough for consoles anymore was stupid.

I'm not sure if you're pining for the old-school graphics, or for the 2D platformer gameplay. If it's the latter, seriously, have a look at the WiiWare title LostWinds. It might bore hardcore gamers, but it's a fun little game (apparently to be episodic) with very well done graphics and fun gameplay. It's kept my wife enthralled for days, which is saying something as she's terribly dyslexic and no gamer by a long shot.

Cheers,

I almost dropped to the floor when I saw this announcement. Imagine my disappointment when I realised that this was not a new port of my favourite game from the 80's to the home console market.

Does this mean that the name "Elite" can be used to market games again, not sure Mr Braben would agree...

• http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/elite/index.html
• http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/faq.htm#A3

Perhaps finally all legal differences could be settled and the best space trading game could be in everyones home again :-)

Jez

Now, take video games (pre-Internet.) You ship a product on a ROM cartridge or a CD, that has no way of ever being updated except by shipping the customer a new media ... well. Believe me, the reliability of those products approaches unity, because a single software error could (and has) cost millions. Consequently, it was worth the investment in design and quality assurance to make the product reliable. Contrast this to, say, any modern operating system where the programmers know that even if they screw up royally they can just fix it with the next maintenance release.

http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/firstencounters/

Ok, the internet quite existed in 1995, but most people didn't have an internet connection yet.

In theory Elite 4 is under development now with David Braben, however the bottom line © 2000,2001 Frontier Developments Ltd. All Rights Reserved has me a little worried.

The main page says Latest news update: 8th June 2006 which is a little better but it looks like it's died in dev. No news on it for years. I think to get your Elite fix the closest game is probably Vegastrike (at least IMHO). Yeah I know we can do OOLite but I like buying new ships!

My top vapourware vote goes to Elite IV. I doubt that it will ever see the light of day, despite how many rumours and articles I read about it.

http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/frontier/index.htm l

Best. Game. Ever.

Got the physics of spacetravel right (Ever tried a planetary slingshot with Freelancer? Even helped me improving my shopping cart skills :) ) Was fun. Was not dumbed down for 12-year-old kiddies, but hard, as a game should be. Was not overbloated like its successor. I have 5 registered resp. bought copies, and 2 old computers that actually run it decently. Get your sharewared version at http://www.frontier.co.uk/

I have a friend who works for a company who sells the whole spectrum of mobile phone gimmicks from ringtones to games. The general consensus is that despite the fact that we have lovely things such as symbian - there are so many different types of phone and OS that the write once, deploy everywhere concept falls on its back. Unless of course you start looking at the J2ME stuff. Which while maybe not as powerful as writing for the native platform means you are not as hindered when it comes to moving onto different handsets.

You really dont need to look to the PSP to see what ordinary nokia's are capable of with a bit of skill decent 3d games are here now the N-Gage for example I've been able to play several N-Gage games on other nokia's such as the 6680. Elite fan's should check out Darxide if you have a series 60 phone! While not quite as wonderful as the PSP , being able to play Tomb-Raider and Tony Hawks in 3d on a phone still impresses friends down the pub especially when they realise that you dont need a silly looking n-gage to play them. These games have staying power and are worth playing.

The trouble is that most of the "really cool stuff" is not written using j2me . Most of the java games i've seen are just crap by comparison! Compare Tiger Woods for symbian (N-gage) to the java version for example. The other problem is that it simply isnt worth the time or effort for these companies to do anything more. The latest java game has about as much lasting power as the latest Crazy Frog ringtone. For the people that sell this shit at £1.50 a throw they are guaranteed a good return. But little jonny is'nt going to complain when he finds out that the game has jonly 3 levels and is exactly the same as the sideways scrolling batman platformer he downloaded last month but with a different tile-set. Its a license to print money really . Fashion concious teenagers will be taken in by it every time just like they will with the latest boy/girl band single (tm) out on monday at leading record stores.

Thing is nvidia have something in the pipeline called goForce, its going to end up in lots of mobile devices and phones (almost certainly the next generation of nokia's). What remains to be seen is how much market penetration it's going to have and if it will fragment the mobile gaming camps or bring them together.

Another problem with gaming on phones are not the development issues they are the form-factor, screen-size/orientation and button configuration. Nokia tried to address these issues with the N-Gage but the design was slated, we all remember the "Taco Shell" comments. I think a landscape clamshell design might perhaps be a better idea - something that looks / acts like a phone when i'ts shut - but open up the clam and there something really funky inside.

We will all just have to wait and see what the future holds.

Nick ...

Elite 4 is alledgedly in progress. Then again that page hasn't changed in quite a while...

I would love to see a new Elite game, there's been an Elite 4 planned for years but nothing seems to have been developed yet. To state the obvious; with today's computers and the evolution of computer graphics since Frontier, combined with the fantastic level of detail concerning the positions of stars and there likely satelites, Elite 4 would a guaranteed hit.

A game sequel suffers when it's primary object is to make money off a successful original. The first thing that comes into my mind is Sonic 2 on the Master System, which didnt seem to have the attention that the original Master System version had, and seemed to come out to only make money from people who hadn't upgraded to the Megadrive. It came out vaguely around the same time as the Megadrive title, but it was simply crap.

I know that game developers and publishers are doing it to make money, but it helps when that's not the only reason to produce games.

I wonder if someone gave Dana Rohrabacher a copy of X2: The Threat or Vega Strike for his birthday?

After playing those for a few hours I always go outside and gaze up at the sky wistfully.

I hope Elite 4 is released soon.

We should give these games to more politicians around the world - with god mode pre-enabled - and say (lie outright),

`This could be you. Just forget the military and help us get into space.'

A boy's got to have his dreams.

Perhaps now David Braben and Frontier Developments will be able to write the long-awaited next version of Elite!

do you feel lucky

Maybe, rather than loosing interest in games, the real reason you are not finding gaming exciting anymore is because no-ones developing anything groundbreakingly different anymore. There are plenty of games that look good, and play well, but most are re-hashes of things that have been done before.

Having said that, I have had some long sessions on THPS4 on the PS2, which also plays well online.

I hear "A Dogs Life" by Frontier developments is supposed to be quite fun although I've never played it. Its about as original an idea as i've seen in a while. What would else would you expect from David Braben (of Elite fame though ?)

I think we just need more original games.

Screenshot here.

Thats just a menu screen though, iirc in the actual game on the bbc everything was wireframe.

I think the later version of it was called frontier. Searching with that should get a few more results.

I'm looking forward to the Slashdot story about the guys from Black Isle getting back together on another game project. Well, I can hope.

Also, some updates on the mythical Elite 4 would be welcome. That thing has been weapons grade vapourware for years now.

He's also wrong in claiming they were the first 32 bit systems available. I hate articles like this because nobody ever mentions any computers from outside of the United States.

The Amiga 1200 was launched in December 1992 but before that a British company called Acorn Computers released the Archimedes range of computers, the next generation after their 8 bit systems (Atom, BBC A/B/B+, Master, Master Compact). Starting with the A305, A310, A410 & A440 in mid 1989 these machines had 32bit ARM2 processors (from which the Intel XScale/StrongARM chips out now originated), the Arthur (later RISCOS (Screenshot) operating system in ROM (instant bootup!), wonderful GUI, built in BBC Basic and easy ARM assembler access, 8 channel stereo sound, etc.

My first computer was a BBC B in 1982 (which should have been mentioned for it's incredible robustness and shedload of I/O ports.. you could link it to anything, oh and for being the machine the original version of Elite was written for) to an Acorn A3000 in 1990, before going PC 94'ish. Shortly after Linux appeared so all was ok again ;)

Pfft... You suck at Elite!

http://www.cjpinder.clara.co.uk/elite.html

A guy called Christian Pinder successfully re-engineered a C version of Elite from the original Assembler source. It uses the Allegro library.

I spent many hours reliving my misspent youth a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, David Braben, who had been turning a blind eye to what was a possible infringement of his IP, asked him to pull the source and binaries as someone had ported CP's Elite:TNK to the GBA. The timing couldn't have been much worse as Braben's company frontier had just released a game called 'Darxide' for the GBA that was itself very similar to Elite, and Breadbin didn't want the (free) competition.

Since then Chris Pinder started work on a sequel to Elite:TNK called 'Darkness Rising' which later changed to 'the Dark-kind' (http://www.darkkind.co.uk) - I played an early Alpha about a year ago, but everything has all gone very quiet on that front. Interestingly enough, the last few messages Christian posted on his forum (now defunct - domain name expired) mentioned the fact that he was getting programming help from none other than Ian Bell, the other co-creator of the original.

After Elite, David Braben's company (Frontier) created Frontier Elite (Elite 2) and then 'Frontier: first encounters' (Elite 3). This last title was released by the publisher's before it was ready, and was riddled with bugs. People still play all the versions, and a guy called John Jordan has re-engineered FFE to run in Windows. http://www.jaj22.demon.co.uk/

They are...

I think its true, Very little has changed in the games industry over the past few years. Hardware, graphics and sound have improved, but the games dont follow suit, rarely innovate or captivate.

Compare the latest Tomb Raider Game (Angel Of Darkness) to the original Playstation game for example. Wow!! its got nifty particle effects going on and lara now has Breast Inertia. The game itself however is nothing new, it breaks no new boundaries (other than technical ones) and the gameplay is the same (except they screwed up the control system and missed out all the cool things lara could do like light flares and drive vehicles)

But all this aside I beleive this must change. There will come a time when our console hardware reaches such unprecidented levels of realism it can go no further. There is only one thing left to improve when this happens and that is to think harder about the actual game itself.

There are plenty of people out there with fantastic ideas for game's but maybe dont have the skills or manpower to make it happen. I myself am forever dreaming up cool ideas, as I am sure are many other /.ers. Its up to the games companies to root these people out, and do something new instead of churning out the same old FPS games and cutesy 3D plaformers time and time again.

Talking of which ... when's Elite 4 coming out !

Download it here. Still great fun today, and even runs in XP.

Well, I think we should add to the list, Shadow of the Beast, Stunt Car Racer, Racing Destruction Set, Marble Madness, Impossible Mission, and Frontier/Elite...

Now, there is work being done on a Shadow of the Beast 3D.

There is also work being done on...

Space Racer - Update of Stunt Car Racer
Trophy - looks real close to Racing Destruction Set
GLTron - one of many clones of the old tron cycles games
Vega Strike - Clone of Elite (I know there's an Elite 4 listed on Frontier Development's page, but judging from the copyright notice at the bottom, it hasn't been updated since some time in 2001)
TrackBalls - Clone of Marble Madness

and...

XArchon - Update of Archon

And they're all open source...which means that you can play current beta versions in most cases...

You seem to have played the wrong games. In one of my favorite space-game, Frontier, you speed up, turn your engines off and let the inertion do the 'flying' for you. Then, when the time is right, you have to fire up your retro-rockets to slow down, or rotate the ship 180 and fire the main engines. If you are good, you don't crash into the space station at 10000 km/s

But check out this game available for ARM handhelds. Its available here, and is actually pretty cool. I'm not sure if someone has already ported Quake to ARM processors (I'd be very surprised if they haven't), but the current crop of ARM processors seem to be high powered enough to run demanding applications.

Oh yeah, the yet in the subject refers to the fact that ARM devices are making the push to the wireless space in a big way.

Jesus, how long have we been waiting for Elite 4?

The only thing that keeps me going is still being able to play First Encounters, and the fact that they still have a link to some Elite 4 stuff on their site.

Wallace and Grommit offical site

better looking than the developers site which truly looks like the car mechanic's car

The first wallace and grommit was "a grand day out" about an adventure they went on to get more cheese. Where is the biggest supply of cheese? Hence all the cheese jokes, dear moderators. This came out in 1991, so it is more likely that Microsoft stole the dog image from aardman than vice versa.

My favourite penguin has always been Opus. And did not the original evil pengiun from Batman, predate Linux? Linux was also created in 1991 another coincidence?

Like all things, some penguins are good and some are not.

Choice, non-linear gameplay, freedom: games like GTA, Black & White, The Sims, etc. are enjoying a huge burst of popularity right now because gameplayers are getting wise to game developers trying to woo us with fancy graphics alone.

As a postscript, may I say how much I'm looking forward to Elite 4 whenever it comes out. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with a granny...

Pouf!

I think Freelancer is an unofficial derivative of Elite/Frontier. There are a couple others as well, including Earth and Beyond (live) and EVE Online (beta).

The official game (which may never come, and if it does, will be a long time from now), has a small FAQ.

The reason was that he'd just realised a commercial Elite-a-like for handhelds, and when searching for reviews of it he found only illegal ports of Elite to the handhelds.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

Firstly, the "illegal port" of Elite (Elite - The New Kind, by Christian Pinder) was approved by one of the joint copyright holders of Elite (Ian Bell), and was a 100% faithful rewrite of the game in portable C from the original BBC BASIC / assembler. It was ported to a huge number of platforms.

Pinder contacted the other joint copyright holder of Elite (David Braben), asking for permission to distribute his free, 100% accurate re-engineering of the original BBC elite. Initially, Braben demanded that just the Pocket PC version be removed, as he was about to release another tired, buggy pile of crap under the Elite name for the Pocket PC. As Pinder had enormous respect for both Braben and Bell, he removed the Pocket PC port.

NOW, Braben has demanded that Pinder COMPLETELY remove ALL ports of his meticulous re-working from the entire internet. Good to know he wasted a year of his life writing it, huh? Why did Braben do this? It possibly has something to do with the fact that after the Pocket PC knockback, Pinder teamed up with Bell to write an open-source space trading and dogfighting game called Dark Kind.

Braben and Bell split up many years ago. Bell became a new-age hippy, and Braben has been writing increasingly bad remakes of Elite. The animosity between them is legendary.

Now if David Braben and his company would get this new concept of AI into their forthcoming (if ever coming) Elite 4 and add in concepts from Morrowind 2 and fractal generated planetscapes with fractal generated cities and civilisations (You will be able to land on planets and do stuff in Elite 4)... that would be The Infinite Game

Now if David Braben and his company would get this new concept of AI into their forthcoming (if ever coming) Elite 4 and add in concepts from Morrowind 2 and fractal generated planetscapes with fractal generated cities and civilisations (You will be able to land on planets and do stuff in Elite 4)... that would be The Infinite Game

Well in Elite anyway.
Ah well... Lonely life.

They said it would be out around the end of 2002, but there's still zero evidence of it...maybe next year, eh?

Thank god he didn't use Elite 4 years...

Will that be before or after duke nukem ?

Anyway all i want is Elite4

The source for a replacement binary for Frontier: First Encounters (Unix/Linux, DOS/Windows 98/2000/XP) can is here, and you can get the complete data files here(shareware, meaning you should send 5 British Pounds to Frontier Developments if you continue to use it after 30 days).

Go to Marjacq.com and click on the "Developer" menu and then "Frontier Devlopments" to read about it. Not much information there except that they are working on it.