C64 Elite (Firebird)

[kinmanyuen]

the grandfather of eve-online

[hultii]

played this game on my first pc a commodore

[elpis78]

inspired game, innocent like its era, and oh.. i was a really good pilot...and rich aslo.!

[Brennafugg]

Other than framerate and other obvious stuff, isn't it neat how smooth the c64 was at presenting 3D motion?

[AxeMurdererx]

Does anyone know where I can download some captured footage for this game?

I would really appreciate your help :)

Thanks

[andrewheroin]

spectrum......................­.......

[TrollingAround]

I'd suggest turning the FSAA up to 4x - ok, ok, calm down I'm old as well - I used to slightly de-tune my 12" B&W tv to achieve FSAA ;-)

[thosch8]

Yes, best game ever! Well, the C64 port was much to easy to play compared to the Amstrad/Schneider CPC port I was used to... and, yes: Oolite is a very good (and free) port for people still allowing "real time manouvers" in virtual reality... Only downside: I'm missing Johann Strauss "An der schönen blauen Donau" as theme...

[pkyok]

There is an Elite clone for pc called Oolite , this is faithful reproduction of the original by fans of Elite. It's free to download and play , just google it :)

[MrPelleas1]

Sadly I have no idea how to run this on a modern PC. I just use my C64 when I can go to the huge effort required to set it up. Oh, and if it helps, I never got to 'Elite.' Dammit!

[MrPelleas1]

How crap was that? You got hammered! This is the seminal computer game and yet to be beaten. And yes, I have it on my C64, still play it, am old and a total geek. Thanks for posting this - next time could you be a little more victorious?

[delanogaston]

@MrPelleas1 Is there a way to "beat" it? My C64 crapped out on me while I was still flying around trying to figure out how to get rid of all the tribbles crawling across the screen...so I never got to complete it. Also, if you or anyone else knows a place to download this classic I'd be greatly appreciative. With an engine to allow it to be played on a modern system would be nice.

[JFredUK]

I don't remember this game having music at the beginning of it. I recognise all the other sounds, though, and it's very nostalgic to hear them all again.

[MrAggtee]

MMO Elite NOW (with the proviso that I could carry over the cargo I've been carrying since 1987)

[HaligonianType1]

I believe there was a special headset you could buy for this also. Or was that Echelon?

[blade004]

@HaligonianType1 That was Echelon :) I wanted that game so badly but you could only get it on disk and not cassette tape so i was gutted at the time because i didn't have a disk drive :( But i remember vividly seeing it in the shop with the headset inclusion :)

[HaligonianType1]

@blade004 I did have Echelon, but not the headset. I still have the magazine with the ad for the game and headset in it. That feeling you got when reading computer magazines back then can't be duplicated by reading PC mags from today. It's all hype and marketing now and it's all so available. Back then if you had a popular game you would probably be the only one in your neighborhood with it, or that even heard of it. Good times...

[1wibble2]

Programmers of today, this game was written in machine code. Not C++, not assembly, but friggen machine code. Now THATS skill :)

[TheBillyJimish]

There are LOTS of people that stupid. I've known many people that would "sit on the roof and watch the mushroom cloud" to say goodnight, when all they ever would have had to do is think of a way to unplug it, and it would never have been a problem they defined themselves by...and expect their mental illness to define you by, in between hurled insults and THEM calling YOU "Crazy".

Some people, like the Queen, Tony Blair, politicians, soldiers, Minister, Priests LIVE to give eulogies. That's all.

[LunaVorax]

wtf music ? 0:21

[joeimprobable]

Somebody should really remake this for the new generation consoles it would be awesome!

[Libervurto]

This is a really bad video of this amazing game.

[JACM10]

I spent hours playing this game and just remember that lovely timeless feeling of drifting around space and exploring new horizons. It was like nothing else at that time, and while lots of other stuff has dated, it is the one game I could still go back and play.

[BigDuke6ixx]

The first day I got this game I played it until 5am the next morning, then went to work.

[HaligonianType1]

Man, I remember the day this came out. It was the cats meow, that's for sure. I remember these games so well because you had to pump so much of your own imagination into them, so more vivid memories are stored in your head. Newer games, altho very nice looking, don't last as long in your mind.

[MoltenPlastic]

@HaligonianType1 Anyone who has ever roleplayed knows that imagination is the best graphics processer ever made.

[HaligonianType1]

@MoltenPlastic I agree. I still have all my AD&D stuff. Dice, manuals, maps. Hell, I was hooked on Zork during the eighties. Good times...

[tausendstein]

you're not moving your ship at all :) This game was really impressive at these days...

[burtowi]

The only thing I've found similar is the browser game Dark Orbit. Trouble is they keep upgrading and it just makes the game worse. Not a patch on Elite though.

[myloveparamour]

1986

That loading screen brought it all back. "Thorn In My Side" and "So Macho" on the radio in the background, trying to get Narcotics into Tionisla with about 7 Vipers toasting my pasty Northern ass, and my cheap pair of Adidas Rocket trainers off to the side in case I needed to go to the shop for a can of Quatro!

[FirebirDG]

Damn, Firebird Software got my name. :D

[cmcnum]

without acornsoft and the bbc micro computer this game wouldnt exist

[rainbirdrich]

Yes, very true. Aside from the BBC original version and the Electron conversion, I think this is the only other version that David Braben and Ian Bell wrote together. Little known fact is that Jez San (of Argonaut software fame) introduced and helped DB and IB to use his co-created Programmer's Development System (PDS) that helped them port and write Elite from the BBC to the C64.

[harleykman]

@cmcnum Nonsense. If the BBC micro did not exist, then the programmers would have developed it for one of the other platforms like Atari 800 or Commodore 64 or Apple II. In fact most of the classics originated on those computers

.

[blade004]

@cmcnum I was mostly C64 back then but ALL 8 bit machines were legendary at the time because they kick started a great time in gaming and in the industry :) I didn't know the game started on the BBC Micro so thanks for the clarification :)

[HardWarUK]

Hey Rich, do you still know Colin?! :)

[brybish]

i lost so many hours on this game but now  we have X .

[ytube4217]

I remember getting an infestation of Tribbles at one point and I don't remember how I got rid of them, if I ever did. BTW. there's a little tribute to that in Knights of the Old Republic...Elite and Wasteland tie for greatest game ever made

[gavsland1974]

ya had to fly to the sun to burn them off,otherwise ya couldnt see where ya were going!

[agentalbert]

@ytube4217 The only way to get rid of the tribbles once you had them was to fly close to the sun, as you would when skimming fuel. This kills them off. Even an escape pod doesn't do it, as one always gets in the escape pod with you and ends up in your new ship.

[Dwarkarn]

@ytube4217

I am pretty sure you had to fly close to suns/stars to get rid of Tribbles? Been a long time, Could be wrong!

[rbresca]

@ytube4217 Being a complete nerd I can remember that you needed to fly close to the sun - the high temperature killed them off :)

[leftsyndrom]

damn so cool. i played it so often i ended up in the 2nd galaxy map.

[SONUSEVENFOUR]

The thargoids used to scare me !

[MindstormXL]

Those huge ships would scare anybody

[Simpson654]

Zaonce is the easiest way, no way to Orerve in the first run. Diso is right out.

[cevansinz]

OMG, you died! I loved this game. Fuel Scoop FTW.

[hkja99]

Enjoyed this game alot back then...

[suskistube]

I played this game for ages. I remember piling up 200.000 credits...

I wish someone had done a MMORPG out of this classic (EVE online can't hold a candle compared to Elite)

[Ericzeppe]

ummm, eve online is elite 200 times over.

The gameplay and things to do is more then gamers would ever ask for

[hladnicar]

this is best gamer ever ever ever,no such great game on any platforms.

[hibbon]

Maybe the c64 didn't do 3d vector graphics that good, well so what, it was still a great game to play. Also, my brother had had the spectum version of this game and he had to use a a crap piece of plastic to verify he had a legal copy every time. C4s rule, Spectrums suck!

[ytube4217]

Haha, yeah, that eye piece copy protection, it was called LensLok. I had it on my C64...or maybe it was the PC, I had both

[RoderickStrong]

I loved this game back in the day, if it was not for this game and the original vector Starwars games, I don't think games like the Wing Commander series would have even existed.

[harleykman]

The pirates that blew-up this guy's ship were probably unbeatable. With the weak pulse laser it takes around 5 hits to kill a pirate, and that's just too slow.

The only way to survive in early missions is to stay close to the starbase and hyperjump as quickly as possible to sell goods. Also save every time.

Once you upgrade your laser, you can take-on the pirates directly and explode them in a single shot. Once you get the Constrictor shielding, then you're unbeatable.

[ImagineerMat]

It really upsets me when i go into a gaming shop and enquire about 'Elite' and the young mid 20 year old nerd looks at me with confusion and asks "Elite?, sorry never heard of it mate"

..... its a fucking classic you moron, you work in a gaming shop and you've never heard of elite? Crazy.

Its a bit like speaking to a fundamentalist christian and speaking about jesus only to get the reply "Jesus... who was he then?"

[harleykman]

C'mon!

The kid wasn't even born yet. How would he know about some moldy old game? It's equivalent to if I asked you about the silent movie "College".

[Shendue]

I guess Jesus had more mass appeal then Elite. ;P

[horsie111]

Lave rulez. aha:)

[timbearcub]

zzzzz is it loaded yet ;-)

had the same prob on my Speccy LOL - loved Elite on that, weirdly 128k elite worked on my Spectrum+ - great game.

Nice music, obv. not heard this

[psiborg83]

Check out the modern Oolite as well :)

[EmperorLjas]

Looks like C64 didn't quite have what it takes to run Elite :)

[yaerav]

Oh, vid looks a bit "choppy" but the game ran pretty well- well enough for me to spend waaayyy to much time playing it, anyway ;-)

[harleykman]

Vector graphics was not the C64's strong point - it was only 1 megahertz after all. Its strong points were its sprite graphics (8) and music ability.

No matter. Elite was still a hell of a game even with the flickering. :-)

[Puzzoozoo]

Looking back its funny how the noise of being under fire used to scare me half to death.

[dredd1366]

oh my god i spent 1000 hrs on this game 20 yrs ago.....

i wish there was a modern multi player version

[RSFO]

Let's make Frontier Elite Online!

[retroblog]

Eve Online ?

[hladnicar]

This is best game in all history of gaming(and present and future)

[mrmrsid]

agree, I didn't count the hours, but I played it 'till my status was 'Elite' best game I've played and probably will play but there is always hope for a PC version (that is if Braben & Bell) seace their argument ;)

[richiecanavan]

Google "Ian Bell's c502 elite page" you can download the c64 version there

[richiecanavan]

thats Ian bell

[richiecanavan]

try ian belle i think he was other guy involved in the production of elite

[ImagineerMat]

CAn anyone point me in the direction on where i can download it? Thats the C64 version....

cant seem to find it on any Torrent sites.

[Card1974]

The different versions are legally available on Ian Bell's Elite page. Just Google it.

[ImagineerMat]

This game for me was the ultimate form of escapism even when you didnt feel the need to escape anything.

Awesome!

[ImagineerMat]

My God, the memories come flooding back!

Was i the only one to exerience slight fear and panic just as you hit the hyperspace jump and then breath a sigh of relief that Witchspace did'nt ruin your game that lasted 4 or 5 hours.

[mikesmithsupersaiyan]

One of the absolute best games of all time!! Thanks for posting it! Looking at this makes me remember the old C64 games. Gunship. Agent x. Usagi Yojimbo. Ninja. otro 1 and 2.

[danielcopper]

@telemetry

The problem with 3D on the '64 come from technical restrictions; it simply did not allow for fast vectors. Warning: Heavy tech. stuff following. The main CPU 'ran' roughly at 1Mhz, interrupted by the Videodisplay, which reduced effectively usable clock speed to ~720 Khz. An avg. 6502-CPU Instruction takes 5 Cycles, leaving us <= 150K/s Operations. This results in screen refresh of max. 17fps max. and drawing lines at nearly 20000px/s.

The above animation reflects this impressively.

[jazzpsalti]

This is for software rendering, of course. Once you start using the hardware graphics you can really speed things up. There are quite a few c64 games that run at 60fps

[Masta686Yamato]

I played the DOS and NES versions. The NES version was released into public domain, so you can legally download the ROM with the game and play it.

[redknee]

best game ever! completed the missions at the end too! playing eve online now which is cool as hell...but hasnt got the same magic of elite

[lurkerrekrul]

I played this game for hours and all I ever got was the Trumbles mission. Nothing else ever came up.

[DonMasakoni]

stunning >__>b

[telemetry9]

the c64 just didn't do 3D very well. It really struggled and the programmers struggled to get playable results in 3D games. The atari 8 bit computers and spectrum had greater capabilities in this area - along with the BBC computer.

[loungingaround]

Unless they've played this game no one can call themselves 1337 , Leet, Elite etc... this is where it all started!

[SycoFockinNoodles]

brings back hours n hours of memories lol

[garniak]

It's a difficult game. When I was a kid it always ended for me like in your video :)

[lurkerrekrul]

That's what happens when you just sit there and don't shoot back. Your ship has weapons for a reason. :)

[OhFookinELL]

the best shoot em up + trading game of all time

[danm1972]

nice nostalgia trip... but do try firing back!