For a long time Acornsoft has been worried about the way their programs leak out and are pirated by ďfriends” before the company has a chance to sell any copies. To combat this they have thrown a security blanket around the new game ďElite” and as a result weíve not seen it, but have put together this view of the game from several sources.

It is an interplanetary trading game but with a difference. The screen is divided into two windows, one in a high resolution two colour mode which gives the view out of your spaceshipís window and the other in a multicolour mode (probably four colours), providing a colour control panel which displays things like status and fuel.

The display through the screen is stunning. Planets are represented as large 3D shapes which tumble towards you. It is not clear if it is possible to shoot at anything but, as one source described it as Starship Command in 3D and another as a bit like the Space Duel arcade game, we would assume that you do. Elite is rumoured to be 80K long on disk with a shrunken version available for tape-based systems, where it is necessary to choose which star system you wish to visit before playing the game. Acornsoft games have been a little dull lately and ďCarousel” was not exactly a bargain at Ł9.95. ďElite” will be the game to re-establish Acornsoftís reputation.