I spent a chunk of today trying out Elite Dangerous: Horizons. This was actually pretty much my first experience with Elite: Dangerous generally, aside from giving the tutorials a go yesterday, but I felt I was long overdue to try it out, particularly as I had bemoaned the lack of a good Star Trek game the other day. Elite is not a good Star Trek game, but it is one hell of a space sim. And, for once, that “sim” part seems apt; this certainly isn’t an arcade-style dogfighting game, as evidenced by the fact that in several hours of play today, I didn’t fire a single shot.

I used to really enjoy space games back in the 16-bit era — particularly those of a more free-form nature such as Paul Woakes’ Mercenary series, Rainbird’s Starglider series (particularly the enormously ambitious second installment) and, indeed, the original Elite. I say that — Elite is actually one that I never quite managed to get my head around when I was young, because there was a lot of things to think about while you were playing, and pages full of numbers that confused and bewildered me. Also docking with those spinning space stations was fucking impossible, so every time I tried I usually ended up quitting in disgust after smashing my ship to smithereens on the space station you start near.

I made the mistake of reading a few Steam reviews of Elite: Dangerous before giving it a go; while there are a few fair criticisms there, there’s also a whole lot of whining about 1) not knowing what to do and 2) Frontier’s business model for the game which, if you’re unfamiliar, sees them essentially re-releasing the game at full price each year with the promise of a year’s worth of major updates to the game systems. It’s perhaps better to think of it as a yearly subscription fee, particularly as the game has a significant massively multiplayer element for those who care to engage with it.

Anyway. Discarding the Steam reviews and jumping in to try things out for myself, I was quickly enraptured by the feeling of flying my Sidewinder. I even unplugged the 360 controller and plugged in my 11-button joystick; it’s no full HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) setup, admittedly, but it feels great when used in a game like this, particularly with the lovely visual feedback the game gives you with regard to movement: unlike the original Elite, whose cockpit was a static bitmap with a viewport into the flat-shaded 3D polygonal universe outside (I was playing the Atari ST version, so it had colours!), Elite: Dangerous’ cockpit is set up to feel like you’re actually sitting in it. Handling the controls causes your viewpoint to shift slightly according to how you’re moving; it tilts when you roll, pulls forward and back when you speed up and slow down, and pulls up and down when you pitch. Given the game has been designed for virtual reality headsets from the get-go, it’s understandable that the game would model head movement pretty well, but I’m glad to see that even when playing on a flat (admittedly large) TV screen it still looks very convincing.

What I’ve found most satisfying about the game so far is the moment-to-moment simulation of flying your ship. Everything you do is just satisfying to pull off, just for the sake of doing it. Especially fun is taking off and landing from various structures and space stations — and, in Horizons, you can now land on planets, too, either at settlements with dedicated landing facilities or just on the ground if you find a suitably smooth patch of terrain to set down. The handling of the ship is beautiful; pulling the stick around feels like you’re wrenching a big, slightly unwieldy lump of metal around in zero- or low-gravity, and the sound design, where you hear your thrusters firing and your engines throbbing according to whatever you’re doing, is absolutely impeccable. There’s even a wonderful crescendo of your engines reverberating off the ground and surroundings as you set down for landing; it is, I think, the most convincing depiction of plausible pure sci-fi space travel I’ve seen for a very long time, perhaps ever.

The most common criticism of Elite: Dangerous is that it’s “a mile wide and an inch deep”, and I can kind of see where that’s coming from: interactions with NPCs are rather sterile and menu driven, though later updates look set to put “faces” to significant characters in the universe. There’s no prescribed narrative, either; you can get involved in the PowerPlay mechanic to swear allegiance to one of the various factions attempting to control the universe, which actually has a significant effect of the game for all players, but there’s no “story” to follow as such besides that which you make for yourself.

In many ways, I think I sort of prefer that for Elite, though; while I do love a bit of story in my space games a la Wing Commander and the like, when playing something as freeform as Elite a story can kind of get in the way a bit, making you feel obliged to go and do certain things rather than exploring the galaxy at your own pace, making a name for yourself however you see fit.

I’ll be interested to see if Elite holds my attention, but for now, it certainly feels like the space game I’ve wanted to play since I was a kid.