Gaming Free Elite style games

[FAST6191]

We have threads for FPS titles and shooters as well as general free games but none for games like Elite.

For those that missed it Elite was one of the original sandbox games set at some point in the future where you were given a ship and send out into the universe to trade/bounty hunt/be a pirate/do whatever. The genre is largely unrepresented in commercial offerings these days but there are still a fair amount of ways to play (with the added bonus of most of them not being all that demanding).
I may add some commercial offerings at some point (a couple of indy/less well known devs have a few things up: http://www.cornutopia.co.uk/lif/screenshots.php and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Rangers_2:_Dominators ) but I will see how it goes.
I will probably also not stay too close the to "elite" genre as there are several games also worth the effort that lack the trading component or something like it.

As a nod to the site there is a GBA port from Quirky:
http://www.geocities.com/quirky_2k1/games/elite/shots.html
http://code.google.com/p/ds-elite/wiki/EliteAGB
And a DS one from the same author (unreleased as far as I know)
http://code.google.com/p/ds-elite/

There is modernised version of Frontier First encounters from one of the xvid developers (FFE was a pseudo sequel):
http://nic.dnsalias.com/FFE.html

oolite for PC, mac and linux:
http://oolite.aegidian.org/

Privateer:
http://wcuniverse.sourceforge.net/announcements.htm

While it is not well represented commercially there was a game called Freespace 2 whose engine got open sourced and subsequently had a lot of very extensive fan mods made (mainly for sci fi (battlestar galactica is one you may have heard of) and older games like wing commander).
A good place to start for these:
http://www.game-warden.com/forum/

Vega Strike:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
While it is a game in an of itself the engine used has powered several other titles/remakes.

One of the original creators has a whole host of versions available:
http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/index.htm

 

[Smef]

I found Space Rangers 2 to be very difficult. You earn money for a mission, and by the time you're able to find the next one that you can do, you've spent all of your earnings on outrageously expensive repairs. The game was also pretty buggy and the 3d battles crashed a lot for me. It was entertaining, but I wouldn't reccomend it to others.



Another game in the same genera, and my guess is that it is what inspired SR2, is Escape Velocity. Originally a mac-only series, it was brought to PC upon the release of the third game, EV Nova. This is one of my most favorite games of all time. It is a real time, top-down action space combat/adventure/trading game which lets you infulence everything in the universe, including government's territory, the rise and fall of a rebellion, alien invaders, as well as letting you pirate and plunder, capturing ships and taking over planets and making them pay a tribute to you (if you are powerful enough and can defeat the planet's defense.) This series has been out for a long time, and I believe it influenced games like freelancer, space rangers, and probably quite a few other games in this style.

I absolutely recommend this game - http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/



Freespace 2 Open (FS2 SCP) is also a great, great game. The graphics updates and new campaigns means that this wonderful space sim can still be competitive compared to newer releases.


I'll have to check out these other links you have posted. They look like they could be pretty interesting as well.

 

[Trolly]

I think there's a mod for something coming out in the style of Star Trek, which is a bit like this. You'll have to try and find it on Mod DB, I think it won an award at the end of 2007 (that might help). Anyway, can't say I've ever played anything in this genre, is it any good?

 

[thedicemaster]

I think there's a mod for something coming out in the style of Star Trek, which is a bit like this. You'll have to try and find it on Mod DB, I think it won an award at the end of 2007 (that might help). Anyway, can't say I've ever played anything in this genre, is it any good?

vega trek?(star trek game running on vegastrike engine)

EliteAGB for DS is available.
i just tried it, but it only uses the top screen.

 

[Trolly]

Nup, sorry, I just looked for it, and it's actually a stand-alone Indie game called BSG: Beyond The Red Line. I think it's the genre you mean, though I only have a video to go on. Just Google it or something.