Talking about Zx spectrum games...Have you guys ever played Elite? ..no let me give you a glimpse of it:
From Wikipedia:
Elite has often been treated as the yardstick by which subsequent space trading games have been measured. However, it was not the first such game; the genre-defining Star Trader had been written as long ago as 1974. The space trading genre combines space-borne combat with a "buy low, sell high" freight transport system and the ability to use the profits to purchase ship upgrades.
The player initially controls the character "Commander Jameson", though the name can be changed after the game is saved. The player starts at Lave Station with 100 credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra Mark III. Most of the ships that the player encounters are similarly named aftersnakes or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated through a number of means. These include piracy, trade, military missions, bounty hunting andasteroid mining. The money generated by these enterprises allows players to upgrade their ships with enhancements such as better weapons, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, an extra energy bank and more.
In the game universe, stars have single planets, each with a space station in its orbit (in contrast to the complex planetary systems that have since been observed). Stars are always separated by interstellar distances. Travel between planets is accomplished by hyperspace jumps, and is constrained to those within range of the ship's limited fuel capacity (7 light years).
Fuel can be replenished after docking with a space station (although this is a challenging task without a docking computer, since it requires matching the ship's rotation to that of the station). Players can upgrade their equipment with a fuel scoop, which allows raw fuel to be skimmed from the surface of stars—being described by the manual as "a dangerous and difficult activity", but in practice a fairly simple process—and collecting free-floating cargo canisters and escape capsules liberated after the destruction of other ships.
While making a hyperspace jump between star systems, the antagonistic Thargoid insect race may intercept the player, forcing his ship to remain in "witch-space" to do battle with their smaller invasion ships. If the player has insufficient fuel to hyperspace jump to a nearby planet, he is trapped in witch-space forever.
An extremely expensive one-shot galactic hyperspace upgrade permits travel between the eight galaxies of the game universe. There is little practical difference between the different galaxies. However, in some versions it is necessary to travel to at least the second galaxy in order to access the game's missions.
Elite includes several optional paid missions for the Galactic Navy. One requires tracking down and destroying a stolen experimental ship; the other involves transporting classified information on the Thargoids' home planet, with Thargoid invasion ships doing their best to see that you do not succeed.
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There are also more modern versions of the same game, that use fancy graphics and what have you, while staying fairly close to the spirit and feel of the original.
When 16 bit computer systems came out, a sequel, "Frontier" was developed. When I got an Amiga back in the early 1990's, I made sure I got this too, and I spent many happy hours doing boring repetitive trade runs and building up to a fully kitted out, and near as damn it unhurtable Panther Clipper.
Frontier is also now available as shareware.
Elite Tee:
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