h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This game sounds remarkably like one of the first games I had installed on my computer. I bought a box set of three games (contained on only two floppies!) which were Civilisation, Lemmings and Frontier. The first two were by far the better games, but Frontier was remarkable for it's depth. Graphics were crap, but still. You could have weapons and things...

Don't forget to mention the terrible glitches in the game... Frontier that is... me remembers spending a WHOLE afternoon landing on a planet to deposit an ore miner... me so wanted to become a miner 49'er... ~grin~... after accomplishing this feat me took off... leaving my mine to go about its business...

Returning a little while later to the star system... me located my mine using the nifty...er.. 'locate mine device'... on my ship... and set off for the planet... 10 minutes later... me was still heading for it... 20 minutes... half an hour... and it finally occurred to me... that me was getting no closer to the planet... me waited... 40 minutes... no closer... me went away and did something else came back after an hour was gone... STILL NO CLOSER!!!

Me couldn't believe it... me wanted to be a miner... get loads of cash... but me was thwarted by a bug in the game... tsk....

Still love it though... the graphics were simple me agree... but when did graphics make a game... me played loads of games with magnificent graphics but ultimately no game play...

Frontier is one of the best there is... great fun!!!!

Greebs.. xx

Frankie, the clue is in the full title: "Frontier: Elite II"

Ah, I see, so it was related!

All I remember is getting bored of doing the standard trade routes, and so being inevitably tempted to do illegal things. At which point, the police spaceships invaribly come and kill you within seconds.

Another funny thing about Frountier, is that no matter how far you explored within the universe, the people on the planets look identical...

Yeah, I used to do that in Elite. Going to an Anarchy planet and taking on the pirates, the police *and* the Thargoids.

Bring it on!

When I was short of cash, I would just point directly away from the planet and fly into space as far as I could be bothered, then sit and wait. That's where the really inept pirates used to hang out - you just had to be patient and wait for them to take the first shot so you could collect on the bounty...

I have to admit that I was *way* too impatient to cope with Frontier, even though I was a massive fan of the original Elite. Trouble was, they made Frontier *too* realistic and complex - I just wanted to get into the game, but there was too much to learn from step one. The beauty of Elite, IMHO, was that it *was* artificially simple and unrealistic - things like hyperjumps and the lack of gravity made everything easier, which left you to get into the game.

*waits for the flurry of angry arguments to the contrary*

I remember, I used to go back and forth from Barnard's Star and Earth continuously to raise cash. The game was clever though, and the stock prices would change eventually.

I think I used to do evil things like arrange deals where you pay 'half now, half later', and then never pay the other half... That sound familiar?

Frontier was great.
*Makes mental note to go back to my parents house and dust off the old Amiga to see if the bugger still works*

I just used to enjoy picking up hitch-hikers and drug-trafficking. Also shooting off radioactive waste into various stars was quite enjoyable.

It did have annoying bugs though, like when you went to take off from a space station and you'd get stuck by the door and explode. I spent many days sulking because of that one. *Starts to wonder if that was just me being crap*

I remember spending ages worrying about how I was going to dock into one of those rotating space stations, but when I went up to it it just docks you automatically...

Really? Pah! That was the best challenge of the original Elite!

- A Purist

Did anyone ever find those Aliens that it was said you could find in Frontier? Me went all over and still didn't come across them...

I'd never heard about aliens about the place in Frontier, though there were some things out there worth finding. I think it depended on which version you used, but there was some bug that allowed you to jump multiples of around 600ly as if it were next door, which is useful for gallavanting around the galaxy. There was a rumour recently that there is a black hole somewhere in the middle of the galaxy, would be nice to visit if anyone could ever find it...