Elite: Dangerous

Elite: Dangerous is officially released on the 16th of December, and even though Elite was, and is my favourite video game in the universe, I’m not sure I can buy it.

I spent innumerable hours playing Elite. It was the most fascinating jewel of a game that I had ever come across, and nothing since has eclipsed its brilliance.

Elite is the ultimate sandbox game, you start with modest tools, a huge universe of 8 galaxies, all procedurally generated (a term that is again in vogue) and multiple ways to play.

Unlike most games there is no fixed path that you are sent down. There is no “Level 1” from which you can quickly escape and move on to bigger and better things. You have to improve your situation a little at a time until you can survey the land from the peak you’ve reached and weep that there is no-one left to overcome.

I’m not going to sit here and describe the game to you, there are plenty of places you can find out about it. I’m here to describe my quandary; I cannot buy Elite: Dangerous, for I fear it is far too well-named.

Knowing how much time I sank into the original, and having watched the development of the new version with interest I am worried that I may be found, a dessicated husk, in front of my computer after a massive 240 hour game session.

My other problem of course is that I have been reading about people using the Oculus Rift DK2 to provide full VR immersion, following the discussions on Reddit and it is make me…moist…well, figuratively…

Additionally all the talk about using HOTAS setups makes me wonder if I could possibly play without one, and of course there is no end of debate regarding the best. Do I play like a mench with a stick or suck it up and scrape along with keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor… sigh

Oh fuck it, I know I’m going to buy it…we’ll see how the mouse is and worry about spending too much later.

Now, where is my credit card?

12 December 2014 - elite computer game