Like a kid again - Elite: Dangerous is nearly here

When I was a nipper a game consumed my life like no other addiction had up to that point (Everquest did rather take over my life about 15 years ago). My dad came home with a copy of Elite for the Acorn Electron we had at the time, got me started on it, and awakened a geek in me that never really got back in the closet.

Elite was originally created by Dave Braben, and, with some imagination, was bloody fantastic. I played with the lights off late into the night - first on the Electron, then the Spectrum and finally my PC (actually, I have been reliving my youth with Oolite - www.oolite.org - on my Mac...).

The basic premise of the first game was a MASSIVE galaxy you could explore, flying between systems trading, bounty hunting, trying not to get killed by pirates, or being a pirate.

Here's thing thing though - the game originally was based on black and white vector graphics with no textures at all. Graphically it was good at the time, but a bit sparse, but the controls worked well, the game was reliable, and actually when played late at night at sleepovers with friends put everyone in an imaginary world flying between systems, taking notes of stock prices for the next trade...

Super.

At the time my friends and I dreamed what it would be like if you could do missions, team up with other players, or buy other ships. And now we are nearly there. Braben got a kickstarter project (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous) to raise over £1.5m and build Elite: Dangerous. And my friends it's everything my 12 year old inner self is dying to get hold of.

The premise is the same but now it's truly massive (the whole Milky Way is mapped - I know!!) and is massively multiplayer too. You can have different ships, and take on missions. Group with friends and do joint missions together. 

Basically it's World of Warcraft meets Elite and I can't wait!! I've already warned my life she will lose me for about 6 months of my life when this game comes out and for the first time EVER I shall be installed bootcamp on my laptop so I can play it on Windows when it comes out rather than wait for the Mac version (which will follow - thanks boys!)

If you want to see more head on over to elite.frontier.co.uk.