Happy Birthday to one of the greatest games of all time, Elite. (slightly belated)
BBC article
If only modern games which claim to have huge free-roaming worlds to explore could stand up to you. If only modern games that claim you can choose to play as you'd like and form your own destiny were truly as wide open to play as you were.
I played the C64 version, and I played it a lot! I didn't get too far in rank, I think it was because I shot down a weird ship, and then got to a base, saved my game, and was given a mission to shoot it down. I couldn't, so I was unable to get a new rank. I carried on playing though. Still plenty to do, plenty to explore, upgrades to make, trading and mining and pirates and notoriety...
I played the sequels on PC too. They were pretty good. :)
Nowadays... I probably wouldn't even be able to dock without a docking computer...
