Some of my friends have been waiting on this review for a while, so here it is. Elite: Dangerous is a fantastically designed and built sci-fi combat game. I will attempt to cover everything I can from mechanics, to gameplay to the very minute details such as the quality of sound. Frontier Developments have taken E:D to an incredible new level since the original Elite game.

For the short winded reader
Elite: Dangerous is a game where you are the commander of a vessel in space (well duh in space) and you must rise through the ranks of various "skills" to become the best...Elite; be it in combat, trading, or exploration. Note that E:D is still in development, an incredible 10 year plan is in place for the future of the game, and at the time of writing this, E:D is in it's second development stage "Horizons" for planets and whatnot. The future of E:D is blindingly bright and if you have any interest in this game whatsoever, I highly suggest it, it is well worth it's price.

The part people want to know...
E:D is a legend in graphics...not to mention Crysis...Crytek's Cryengine was way ahead of it's time when that game came out, but more on the graphics in a moment.

The Gameplay
This is where most people who gave the game a negative review will probably kick in. A lot of the mixed reviews for this game are from a bunch of reviewers who gave the game a bad review because they believed that the game was too hard and that it was way to repetative. I will now attempt to clarify this in more of a non-biased light.

E:D is layed out in a way that the player can basically do whatever they damn well please. When you start out, you are dumped into the starter ship the Sidewinder, and from there you can do whatever you wish...note that with this also comes an expected result. You go zooming across the galazy in your limited Frame Shift Drive (FSD) and run out of fuel...call up the Fuel Rats before your life support dies. Straight from the start you can jump into trading, combat, and exploration. In the mechanics section I'll discuss how the game furthers this by allowing you to upgrade your ship.

On top of all the various mainline skills, you can of course set out on your own. Now to confront this...this is also exploration, but when you start...lemme make this abundantly clear....YOU ARE NOT the master of the galaxy. Other players/NPC can give it to you in the bum if they want to. You have to know what you're doing out there in order to make it out there. This means not going after an Anaconda (huge multi-million dollar vessel capable of arming some of the biggest weapons in the game) even though it looks like it's just sitting there; this also means that you don't go flyin' into a combat or high risk mining zone. This is common sense people.

Moving on....

Some might not consider this game play, but I feel that it may or may not impact some player's gameplay. E:D is also capable of some customization. Some who already own the game know this...but you change the HUD color away from that standardized orange. There are color matrix options and tools on the interwebs to assist you. Speaking of interweb tools, (also now on Steam) VoiceAttack is a fantastic tool to use with E:D, I personally love it and bought the "Vega" voicepack from HCS Voicepacks to accompany it. Vega is voice by Brent Spiner...aka "Data" from the Star Trek TNG universe.

The various "skills" that the player can encounter are very well done;

• Combat
  
  • Obviously, this is the "Shields up Red Alert!" stuff that a lot of players get a huge kick out of.
    
  • Combat is a very large part of E:D (duh) and not in just the generic sense. Players can pick up a multitude of missions such as assasinations, mass killings, or even destroying drones/vessels for an opposing government in a neighboring system.
• Trading
  
  • Space Trucking for the win!
    
  • Trading is a very interesting field of ranking, the skill can take you down different paths to your fortune. You can start with just accepting general trading missions, or you can move onto the darker side and start smuggling.
    
  • Smuggling is a very interesting business...usually involving "Silent Running" where your ship must become virtually undetectable by means of killing all energy movement...including heat. Yes...people can pick you up based on heat value of your vessel.
• Exploration
  
  • My personal favorite
    
  • The best thing I find in this is the utter beauty of the sights you can find.
    
  • Second to that, when you discover a system for the first time and scan it for "Universal Cartographics" you actually get your name labeled on it...like "Discovered By: <inster CMDR name>"....it's really cool.

The Graphics
Speaking of the beautiful sights...E:D is an amazingly beautiful game. I believe there are only a couple that rival it...GTA V not included. If you're no longer interested in reading this review and actually want to see some stuff, I suggest ObsidianAnt on YouTube, he is a very prominent youtuber for E:D but his videos capture some of the glorious views in E:D.

Every update in E:D releases more and more astonishing and breathtaking things to enhance the game. Previously, Frontier added Neutron stars to the game, a beautiful star type of white coloring that spews blue/purple gas from it's poles. Don't get close to it though...bad idea.

The stations in E:D are also something to take into account, the stations are VERY detailed. Landing on a landing pad doesn't even share the majority of what's at a station in E:D. There are moving cars and transports moving around the station, dones, signs, lights, construction, and just the general vibe. Not to mention that there are various station types. High Tech stations are very heavy in a clean-ish look, white tiling and interiors provide that advanced look, mining stations....embedded within an asteroid...look legit like an asteroid base...and the details just keep coming.

But while I'm flowing on this; let me take a second to cover the sound.

E:D's ambient noise is...well...one of a kind. I can't describe it. The music/soundtrack is totally awesome, but the sound effects themselves...sound like they should. Pulse Lasers? the sound like dense pulses of concentrated energy being blasted. Diamondback Explorer Engine? Sounds like it's going to blow off the rear of your ship any second. Anaconda? You could hear it before you see it. Planetary geysers? I need to stop, I'm probably not making sense at this point.

Running out of room...

Onboard Systems
Apart from Vega...all E:D ships are equipped with an insane set of detailed commands and features. From advanced sensor arrays and navigational panels, to a self-destruct sequence. There are about 5 different core panels along in your cockpit in E:D. Comms, information, navigation and missions, on-board crew and docked vessels, and Engineering. No, lies...there are 6. Your dashboard.

Vessel Hardware & Types
The sidewinder is not the only ship in the game...nor is it limited to what it can equip (within reason of course). There are tons of different ships in the game, from combat specific types, to trading haulers, and 30LY jumpers for exploration. Each is also capable of a massive amount of hardware to be equipped.

Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics:10/10
Mechanics:9/10
Overall: 9.5/10

I highly recommend this game to anyone who plays games. :espresso: