Do yourself a favor.  Don't buy Elite: Dangerous.  Yet.





Elite: Dangerous was a very anticipated, certainly one of the most of the upcoming Space Sim games.  It is the fourth in the amazing Elite games, the series that (at least with the first two games), have fully defined what a Action/Exploratory/Economical Space Sim should be.  Given that knowledge I would like to make a bold statement:  I do not like Elite: Dangerous in its current form, and consider it a waste of money.  While it is a very pretty and includes some very interesting multiplayer as well as the massive scale sized galaxy, I feel it is a massive step back for the series, that being the inability for true planet fall.  It might sound silly, but planet fall (and Newtonian physics) were huge selling points for the second game in Elite series, Frontier: Elite II.  You couldn't get out of your ship and wander around like a goof (like you could in the Battlecruiser and Universal Combat games), but it was a lot of fun doing it.  The closest I was able to come to this in Elite: Dangerous was towards a planet, watching it slowly loose detail and definition, and finally appear to clip through it.  Weird.  So with that I can not recommend Elite: Dangerous in it's current form.  Not for the initial price of $59.99 USD, not for the recent price drop to $44.99 USD, and not even for the recent sale price on Steam (until September 28th) to $26.99 USD.

"But, Bomba," you loudly exclaim, shocked at my attitude.  "$26.99 is a pretty good price, right?  Surely all those features are worth that amount of money."  And to that I heartily agree.  In fact I would front the money, especially considering the if not for one eentsy-teentsy little problem - the first "season" expansion, Horizons, is due out holiday 2015.  Now before you comment, there is a few more components to this tale.  The first being the cost, which is $59.99 USD.  And yes, this is the price of the original game on launch.  So what gives?  The second component, that being that the price also happens to include (assuming you don't already have it), all the original Elite: Dangerous content.  So what if you bought the original game already?  For a limited time you get £10 loyalty discount.  Smokin'.


Despite all of this nonsense I still think the game looks pretty awesome, and will even consider buying it at some point.  The trailer (above) really helps, but the way it is being marketed makes me nervous and more than a little fearful for my already sparse folding money.  What about Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3, also due out at the end of the year, and each costing $59.99 USD?  But even if I were only buying Space Sim games I would likely take a chance on an unknown quantity as I would a game with pedigree.  Rebel Galaxy and PULSAR: Lost Colony (with its extremely provocative multiplayer experience), and Rodina are all Space Sim games that I will likely dip into at some point during the next six months.  Plus I need another Logitech Extreme 3D Pro at some point (the Saitek AV8R isn't cutting it anymore).  And if I want to play it cheap, I can just play Pioneer (the free, open source version of Frontier: Elite II) with the cockpit mod.  Sure, once you land you can't go faffing about on the surface outside of your ship, but that is alright, because the price is right.

So do yourself a favor, friend.  Don't buy Elite: Dangerous.  Yet.

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