Number 285
(0.6 points)
Frontier: Elite II
1994: 100
The first game from 1994 is a controversial one: most magazines were awestuck by David Braben's sequel to the ground-breaking Elite, but Amiga Power were the exception, suggesting it was slow and boring, especially on a stock Amiga 500. Its appearance at number 100 in the next list after its late 1993 release seems more out of respect for the effort than for it being a good game. Putting a PD version of Pong in the spot above it seems very deliberate.
Anyway, enough politics, what about the game? Anyone who has played the original Elite, which came out on a number of platforms, will understand the basic premise of going from planet to planet, trading various goods. Frontier builds on that by adding more tasks to do such as working for the military, escorting people between worlds, making deliveries, and interacting with the police to a far greater extent than was ever possible in Elite. As in its predecessor, there is no specific goal other than what you set for yourself, and with billions of stars to explore, it can become more a way of life than a mere game.
I really feel like Amiga Power were being overly critical by giving the game 65% on the Amiga 500 (75% on the A1200), because aside from being a truly miraculous achievement to fit a galaxy on one disk, it's really Elite on steroids, and if you like Elite (and I do) then this improves on it in almost every way. Sure, you could argue that the space navigation gets in the way of the trading and interacting, but take that away and it's not really the same. Flying a spaceship around the universe is part of the appeal, and it either appeals to you or it doesn't. For me, I just wish I had enough free time. But make sure you play on a (real or emulated) Amiga 3000 or 4000, because Amiga Power were kind of right about its A500 performance.
Recommended TOSEC disk(s):
Frontier - Elite II v1.05r4 (1993)(Gametek)[cr FLT]
Frontier - Elite II (1993)(Gametek)[savedisk]
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