Elite from 1984 is a sick game. I got interested in it because I was looking for crazy NES games that pushed it to the limits, and that was one that really blew my tiny mind.

Cut to me writing this post right now, having just spent a day trying to play it, I am just sick and tired. Not because of the game (and not because I was addicted), but 'cuz of how I tried to play it.

Here's the thing: there are a MILLION different ports of the game, each one of them slightly different in some sorta way. I wanted to look for the definitive/most convenient option. That ended up driving me to the ground in terms of insanity. Here is an explanation of what I learned along the way.

Maybe I'll make a tutorial on how to play this game too cuz it's one of THOSE games where you actually need the damn manual to work it out (and nobody, I mean NOBODY is arsed for that these days and I completely get it).

Elite (1984) is one of those games that is in dire need of a remake, like System Shock (thank tha LORD that is getting one tho!), and not just a superannuated sequel (*cough cough* Elite: Dangerous *cough*)

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I was thinking, I could either play: the ORIGINAL, the one the developers recommend; the regarded-as-best port; or a great fan port. Here you shall see an option for all FOUR... and one more that nearly sealed the deal.

this is really the sorta OG non-George Lucas'd version of the game. You can literally play it the total OG way using this online emulator which even plays some lovely BBC Micro sounds and has the same crappy load speed as the original. Love it. You can also straight up buy it officially from the Frontier store (the shop for everything Elite basically) for the very reasonable price of $0.00.

made by a different company that I forgot the name of, this has loads of new features that I cba mentioning including many that were part of various different ports of the game. Amazingly enough, I don't need to tell you that you have to go and emulate the system for you to play this, because that Christian Pinder getting-all-da-galdem-on-Tinder guy reverse-engineered THIS port too in 2020! Legit, here it is. Barely anyone knows about it. You can't even google it properly (because there is literally no backlink to it except from his own yt vid desc).

this version is pretty sweet. the graphics are easily the most refine

shooting in this is pretty hard because the ships are really damn good at manouevering around and just getting away from you and crap. at times you can literally just be minding your own business and then suddenly get turned into spacedust by a group of pirates nearby. at the same time though, this has moments that just impresses me. one time I was getting bullied by pirates again, and a bunch of police vipers rolled in and started a dogfight war against them, allowing me to survive and continue on my way to the planet I was heading to

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The challenge for the devs when it came to these ports was the fact that they had to cram the entire control interface of the game to a small set of keys (you kindaaa don't have a keyboard to work with). The crazy part is that they fricking succeeded excellently at that, making a pretty intuitive, and in some ways modern, interface.

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I'll be honest, you're best off playing Elite: Dangerous. it's the closest thing to a modern Elite you're getting. There's also Oolite, but that's more a fan remake thing. Kinda like how Minetest is to Minecraft. I want you to play the 1984 game, as EASILY as you can.

I wish, I WISH I could recommend you the GBA ports, but I just CAN'T. They do everything I want: cram the experience with a lot of complete features, with decent graphics, within a simplified control set. But both have their damn problems and they are just unplayable as a result. It seriously sucks. idk maybe im speakin outta my arse. The New Kind is defo broken. AGB is just INSANELY hard when u have to dogfight 7 people all at once

The NES port on the other hand, is old, laggy and is less visually appealing. That can easily be accepted, but it's a hard pill to swallow after having just played the GBA ports and seeing all the pretty filled and coloured polygon ships. That being said, it is indeed very playable and is DAYUM fun. I recommend this if you want to play with a simplified control set.

As for the PC ports, they're all really good. You just have to learn how to use the keyboard to play. To do this, get the instructions text file, and just have it open next to the game window as you play. Use that as reference every time u forget what keys to press. I recommend the Acorn Archimedes port as it is insanely recent and controls just the same as any other port, but is feature-complete. That being said, it is the hardest too.