Elite: Dangerous Platform: PC, Mac, XONE Developer: Frontier Developments Publisher: Frontier Developments Total score: 8 out of 10 stars - HEX: 4 - BAJO: 4

BAJO

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Bajopants. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds; to seek out new credits and new bounties. To boldly go where no one has gone before!

HEX

Yes, welcome to Elite: Dangerous, a space simulator that sets you loose in a mind boggling recreation of our Milky Way galaxy.

DARREN

Pew pew! Approximately 150,000 star systems here have been designed based on real available scientific data. While the remaining four hundred billion or so star systems humanity has yet to discover, are procedurally generated based on models for how star systems form.

HEX

400 billion is a ridiculously big number isn't it?!

BAJO

Yeah, and it's just so impressive when you're looking at this map, knowing you can travel to all of these stars. It really helps you get to grips with just how massive our galaxy really is!

HEX

Now, we reviewed this game on our big show when it first came out on PC. But it's just recently come to Xbox One, so we thought we'd revisit it to see what's new and see how it's handled the jump to console.

DARREN

The basics are still very much the same. You choose to play either online in a galaxy full of other players or you can play solo, though you still need to be online for that as well. Then you start off at random space port with a cheap ship and almost no money, and what happens next is completely up to you. There are essentially three main career paths to pursue; between Combat, Exploration, and Trading. As you complete missions or actions within each career you'll level up its respective status, and after many hours you may even eventually reach the coveted status of 'Elite'!

BAJO

Yeah, you really are left to figure things out for yourself. There's no story to guide you, and you'll never be told what to do next. There's no one to hold your hand.

HEX

Yeah, and this is a pretty hardcore space sim. There're a lot of controls and systems to learn so it's easy to feel overwhelmed at first. But I will say they've done a good job of bringing all the controls onto the controller and making it feel intuitive.

BAJO

There are some tutorials and also links to detailed videos which can help you. But once you look up at those 400 billion stars, it's really hard to know where to start!

DARREN

Well, your best bet when starting out is to simply visit various space stations and check their bulletin boards. These offer up a whole range of missions that will get you some much needed credits that you can spend on upgrading your ship.

HEX

Yeah, to start with, your ship isn't useful for anything other than a few basic supply runs. But once you've earned a few space bucks then your options do open up.

BAJO

You could kit out your ride with some mining gear and head out to the asteroid fields. Or maybe you'd like to simply explore and chart the unknown. Or just upgrade your weapons and start looking for space pirates with bounties on their heads! Aarrrrr, me space bounties! Or, even turn into a space pirate yourself! You can make a living pretty much doing anything!

HEX

You know, when we reviewed this last year, I wasn't a big fan of how long it took to scrape together enough credits to buy even the most basic upgrades. But I'm happy to say it's much more generous now. It wasn't long before I had the credits to afford to do just about anything I wanted!

DARREN

I also appreciated the fact that you never lose money on any purchase you make. So if you buy a new weapon for 26,000 credits, you can sell it back and swap it for something else and get your 26,000 credits back.

HEX

Yeah, it means you can try out new gear and new careers and never feel like you're being punished for buying anything. Every credit you earn stays yours.

BAJO

Unless you blow up and then have to pay for the insurance.

HEX

Which does happen!

DARREN

In terms of other additions, there's also a new CQC arena which pits pilots against each other in pure combat. Here you don't bring your own ship from the main game and instead use pre-built ships. As you play you'll level up and unlock new weapons and ships to use in the arena. And you'll also earn credits that go back into your main career.

BAJO

It's a good place to start your Elite journey too, because you get a quick fix of action and a jumpstart to your career out in the galaxy.

HEX

The combat is a lot of fun too, some of the more powerful weapons are really satisfying to use. And juggling power between your various systems and trying to out-manoeuvre your foes always gets the heart racing! I did struggle to find matches on Xbox though, which means the player population probably isn't that high, and that's a bit of a shame.

DARREN

We should also point out that there's also a big new expansion landing before the end of the year which will bring with it the ability to land on rocky planets and drive around in a buggy amongst other additions.

BAJO

That space buggy does look fun Hex! And apparently they're adding a first person mode, and atmosphere to the planets so you can go and explore them! It's an ever evolving game which is a good thing. We should wrap this up though, final thoughts?

HEX

Well, we've barely scratched the surface of this game. It's so unbelievably vast that you could spend your whole life exploring it and you'd still have barely seen the smallest fraction of it. But there is a lot of fun to be had carving a life for yourself out among the stars. I'm giving this 4 out of 5 rubber chickens.

BAJO

Yeah, it really is impressive. But it's also a big commitment! Everything you work for in this game is hard earned, but that makes it more satisfying too. I'm giving it 4 out 5 rubber chickens.

DARREN

Pew pew! Pew pew! Ahahah!