Frontier Elite 2

Title		Frontier Elite 2
Game Type	3D Combat Sim
Players		1
Compatibility	All
Submission	angus@angusm.demon.co.uk

Review
It's worth remembering that this game had to follow one of the most
successful games in the history of the home computer, and do so many years
after most of us had ceased to be spellbound by a bunch of 3D routines
mimicking a universe. Tricky.... Well, most people would agree that
Frontier did not surpass it predecessor in terms of enjoyment and wonder,
but nevertheless it is a very good game. Very good, but flawed in some
simple ways, which if corrected would have propelled the game to classic
status. Mr Braben has been pretty serious in trying  to create a living,
breathing universe where different ships ply the space lanes, each going
about it's own individual tasks. An achievement certainly, but this
approach does cause some problems. When you are attacked in Frontier, it
is almost always by lone ships, this is because the attacking ships really
have travelled great distances to reach you and have separated slightly
during the voyage. Now a random ship generator would have solved this
problem but it would be far less authentic .....but possibly more fun.
Another aspect of this "too real" syndrome occurs with the missions. Now
some serious work has been done on the missions, since Elite and there
are lots of different choices, although they do basically break down
into just a few mission types. The problem is that you don't get a sense
of being anyone special. The missions are generated for you, as one of
thousands of pilots, and you never really feel like a "Star Hero", just
like one of many, doing a job of work. Very realistic, but a more
simplistic approach might again have been more fun. The same is true of
combat. In the orginal game you weaved around in simplistic but exciting
dogfights, often outnumbered 3:1, but here your single opponent and you
often seem to be tied to opposite ends of a piece of elastic, and you
continually "joust" each other, overshooting and correcting. Now given the
relative velocities, and Mr B discusses this in the manual, this may well
be very realistic, however...... you get the idea. I seem to have ended up
slagging the game off, but I'm a nostalgia junkie too, and my hopes were
very high. Aside from a few minor bugs in Frontier, it's actually very
playable, and it rivetted me for 6 months solid. It is a very good game,
but it did fall victim to the success of it's illustrious predecessor.

Alphabetical list.