The Amstrad version of Elite, and indeed all the Z80 processor machines were handed over to the company Torus for conversion. and apart from running slightly slower they are solid versions of the game.

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.

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.

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

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