Elite is the classic space trading combat title, and an early example of a sandbox game, in that the player can decide how they want to play it. Some would concentrate on the trading of goods between planets, while others would divert funds to increase the shields and weapons on the craft to take on the Space Pirates for their bounty. Upgrades to the ship such as better lasers can be purchased, as well as things such as docking computers to make life easier.

The packags contains the infamous Lenslock, a piece of plastic that was held up to the TV flat, and two lines had to be brought to each end of the device. Then keys were pressed until the letters OK could be seen clearly through it, often though it was very fussy indeed, and if it deemed the user had got it wrong the memory would be cleared.

Even if the game launched, the player still needed to answer a question from the Dark Wheel booklet, get that wrong and the dreaded Lenslok screen would return.

 All a classic case of punishing the legitimate user. cheat devices such as the multiface could enter a poke command to get past the protection code and immediately start the game, then new tape copies could be made and passed around.

 Also it did not work on portable TV sets, or at least would make the process ten times harder.

Thankfully the 48K game failed to work on the new 128K machines, so a new version of the game was released, without the contraption.

All the Z80 processor machine versions were handed over to the company Torus for conversion. Although not as smooth or fast as the BBC original, the team delivered a sterling conversion that sold very well and many Spectrum fans consider it to be one of the systems top games. 

The Spectrum version was completed first, but the authors only had a 6502 dump of the code, so decided to write it in Z80 assembler from scratch, this meant that the game was released a full year after the Acorn and C64 versions. The Amstrad version was completed rather more quickly as it was converted from the Spectrum.

Unlike the BBC and Electron cassette version (The disk edition does have two), there are secret missions to be found.

Space dog fights are also common as pirates will try and steal your cargo, and if you are unlucky, take your life as well.

The player starts the game with a harmless status, working all the up to Elite, judged on how many kills have been achieved.

The player does not have to play as a good guy, they can choose to be a pirate and steal other ship's cargo, then face attacks from bounty hunters and police ships.

Elite has become a classic, and spawned two sequels, as well as a brand new reboot for consoles and PC in 2015, titled Elite Dangerous.

Information About Firebird: