My desk is really small, it has way too much junk on it that has piled up to the point where I can’t even see the start bar on my tiny pathetic excuse of a monitor. Maybe It’s just me, but everything seems so small. Unlike the days when I would sink into the massive comfortable computer chair in my Gramps’ dedicated computer study, lean up over his humongous wooden desk to press the giant chunky ON switch, and watch the monitor flicker into life.

I am a real dude and I play real games so I am going to tell you about myself and my games and the guy who really got me into games in the first place... My Gramps.

So for a while, let’s leave behind tiny Ikea desks and slimline monitors and uncomfortable chairs. Let’s forget about 3D graphics and DirectX or the fact that we even know how a computer works other than tapping RUN GAME into MS-DOS.

I remember how absolutely in awe I was the first time I got to sit down in that chair. My first experience of a computer and how fucking awesome it really was. It was like TV that you could control. My Gramps’ says “Check this out...” and up pops the first computer game I will ever play.



Even today I am amazed at the complexity and depth of this game. Nowadays you slam a disk into your console. There is a button to FIRE SPACESHIP ROCKETS and for those of us with short attention spans. TURBO BOOST SPACESHIP.

Elite pretty much required you to be a NASA trained space pilot with knowledge of how the stock market works. Some of you will be laughing at the truth of that last sentence, believe me it’s not an exaggeration, and some of you will be saying “What the fuck are you talking about already?”



Well what is Elite right? In Elite you play as whoever you want to be. You don’t have a name (as far as I remember, I was pretty ignorant.) You are a Space captain, a Space Pirate, a Space Trader, a Space Mercenary. Elite was the forerunner of open ended gameplay. You are given a world and you can do what the hell you want with it. Fuck Oblivion, Elite was here first and Elite is better.

You traverse the universe in your spaceship and meet other people and aliens, you can kill them, trade with them, make money, lose money, take on missions and assignments, bounty hunt, collect goods for trade, buy weapons or just explore! All depending on how you want to play the game.

This was the first game to really create a world and put you in the driving seat of how that world developed, in a first person perspective where sitting in your desk chair at home really made you feel like you were sitting in the piloting seat of a spaceship and your Monitor was a window into this world.

Elite is so realistic however, it can become frustrating sometimes. Let’s say you want to trade with another spaceship you meet. You can’t just hit the trade button and open up a window to exchange items. No. You have to program your docking computer to dock the two ships together, after establishing relations. If you are a fraction of a degree off, you ships will crash out and explode. If you get pissed off with all your docking failure and just want to blow shit up, it’s not as simple as just hitting the big red FIRE button. No you’ve got to load and arm the cannons with the correct ammunition. You’ve got to plan your firing trajectory and when you do blow up the other spaceship, you then have to worry about the authorities who will be hunting you down.

While playing you need to ALWAYS be aware of your fuel because if you run out, you’re a goner, but if you can’t afford to buy more fuel, then you can STEAL it.

And finally, The game has a working, evolving economy where prices of goods rise and drop depending on how plentiful they are in the universe. If you are a player who wants to advance and make money in the game (to maybe buy better weapons and blow shit up better.) You have to understand how the market and trading works.

This game was more realistic than so many games released today and in essence, it was just lines and pixels on a screen. Elite is the first computer game I ever played and I really think it has stood the test of time with it’s depth and realism.

If you have never played Elite I encourage you to find it and play it because for me it will always be one of the greatest games of all time.