Frontier, Elite 2

Many regard Elite, David Brabern's 3D trader as one of the greatest games of all time (not to mention the best game for the BBC micro ever). Frontier arrived many years later, and met with similar critical acclaim. For the most part Elite was a space trading game, with some action involved when you got attacked by pirates on the routes between planets. Elite 2 expands on this theme greatly. You can now become a miner, an assassin or a glorified postman, taking parcels around the galaxy. It's up to you. Of course if this is all too risky for you, you can simply trade goods for the rest of eternity. The graphics are good for the ST, though the game takes no advantage of the STe's better music capabilities, and the soundchip music is grating to say the least. For the most part Frontier is a very absorbing game, but as it really has no end, it can become the sort of game you just give up on. Once you've experimented with all the ships, and bought the one that most suits your line of work and you've completed a load of missions, you end up thinking; whats next? The game isn't without it's flaws as well. Although the docking in Space Stations is a lot easier than in the original, the autopilot is more than capable of crashing you for no reason. This is particularly acute in some systems, where sometimes you can spend hours chasing a planet whose orbit is too fast for your autopilot to catch up with. Fighting in the smaller ships is also bloody difficult, mainly thanks to the game's slightly dodgy frame rate. Trying to line up a shot when the sights jump across the screen is highly frustrating. Another bug comes in the assination system. You are told to be in a certain place at a certain time to shoot some unsuspecting bugger. Although you arrive at the right place at the right time, sometimes the ship that you're mean't to be attacking isn't there. More often than not this leads to you being demoted by the powers that be. Elite 2 is definitely a classic, and should have a place in most ST gamer's collection. But the flaws are tedious and annoying, and could have easily been ironed out with a bit more play testing.

Zogging Hell Rating: 9/10

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