Computer gaming really started for me with Elite. This game held me spellbound for the entire Christmas holiday in which I had received it as my main gift.
Now I know that my mum had a bit of a miserable time that holiday. Myself and my Dad, who played the game when I wasn’t playing it, spent every waking hour flying our spaceships and so did not spend much time as family. This is the inherent problem with gaming.
I used to play the game with my friend – we took turns in the cockpit flying from one space system to another – while the other watched. Collaborative computer gaming did not really exist in 1986. We used to imagine that the rest of the house was just a hologram designed to make our spaceship more homely, although I’m not sure my parents, nor my sisters, ever knew that we were pretending they weren’t real.
One of my over-riding memories of this phase was the fact that my Dad beat me. Whilst I got through to Deadly – the second top rank, he made it all the way through to Elite.
Thirty years later, you may well know that Elite is back. Elite Dangerous is a lovely space game, in which you can spend hours doing the same things you did in 1986, but with better pictures. If you’ve played Elite Dangerous at all, you know that commanders greet each other with an 07 salute, hence the title of this post… Yes! I do play the new Elite. I’ve got myself a decent ship and a small amount of capital which I’m using to buy a better ship. My wife thinks it’s really boring – flying and docking she calls it. She can’t believe I like to spend my time playing it.
But as in 1986 it has happened again – my Dad has beaten me. He has a much better ship than me and hods of money and what’s more he is even Elite in one category. So at 75 years old, I still can’t beat him.
#28daysofwriting Day 19