Find us on

Elite: Dangerous Review

Zelus' Elite Dangerous Review

Welcome to Elite: Dangerous. Good luck earning those 'Elite' wings.

Critic Score: 3 out of 5
User Rating: (19 votes, average: 3.05 out of 5)

Controls and Schemas

Elite: Dangerous enables just about any modern control method, giving it the best control options of nearly any game. Though an Xbox 360 gamepad works well enough, the mouse and keyboard works a lot better, and flight sticks work extremely well if they have enough buttons and modifiers. In all my playtime so far, I’ve spent the most time with a standard mouse and keyboard setup; however, the Saitek X52 flight stick is becoming a close runner-up. Elite: Dangerous also has out-of-the-box Oculus Rift support, which, I believe, makes it the first retail and high quality game to do so. With the correct NVIDIA or AMD drivers, desk space, and adequate number of USB ports, the Oculus Rift with a mouse and keyboard or a solid flight-stick is extremely fun and hard to beat. At the time of writing, I’d say Elite: Dangerous is the current leader in Oculus Rift experiences and will be for some time.

Elite Dangerous Review Screenshot 05

“Stations like these are gorgeous obstacle courses.”

Through the use of some 3rd party software, Elite: Dangerous can respond to voice commands. Very few things come close to saying, “Engage” to start hypercruise mode. Also, Elite: Dangerous seems to be very friendly to modified audio files, textures, and GUI elements; I plan on switching in F-Zero GX’s “You’ve got boost power” audio clip when afterburners are at the ready and using custom green-black interior ship GUI.
 
By default, there are over 150 different keyboard commands, shortcuts, and settings; a search function is almost needed for finding specific bindings. Every action and key can be rebound with up to three additional modifier keys, meaning that if you don’t like the placement of the ‘Eject All Cargo’ button then you can set it to something like Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Spacebar to avoid accidentally hitting it – beware of Windows’ sticky keys though.

Game Feel and Friction

Every first-time experience in Elite: Dangerous is nerve wracking and intimidating, and thus, amazing. The first time you flight check, dock, scoop fuel, and get interdicted out of system super-cruise will put you on the edge of your seat and make you take the game seriously. Every first-time is thrilling and interesting, and I think the ‘why’ lies in the fact that everything about you and your ship is incredibly fragile in the beginning. Your first time flying is full of questions like ‘How do I do this,’ ‘What the hell is that,’ and ‘Where do I go?’ Your first ship has crummy shields, poor heat tolerance, the second worst pulse lasers, and is tiny compared to everything else that is immense, loud, and threatening to kill you.

Combat is where Elite: Dangerous shines, and it shines very brightly. Properly coordinating hardpoints, power distribution, throttle position, and reticles is a purely skill based affair that rewards skillful play.

Elite Dangerous Review Screenshot 06

Fuel scooping is frightening, at first.

Successfully defending your cargo in your first brush with a pirate is deeply satisfying, and turning in your first bounty is fulfilling. Everything about the cockpit interface during combat simply ‘clicks’ together in a cohesive and functional manner, too. The sensor readouts, targeting, ammunition, power, fuel, communication channels, warnings – everything is right there when and as you need it.

Controlling a ship properly takes precision, and every ship is a little bit different. Hardly anyone starts out with the dexterity to master a ship immediately, but it does come to you over time. Docking is a nightmare at first, but when you master it, you feel amazing. Cargo scooping chunks of ore while mining is also a nightmare at first, but again, once you master it, you feel incredible. Elite: Dangerous’ strength is in the mastery of ship movement and subsystems, and it feels really, really good.

Music and Sound Design

The music and sound design is generally minimalistic and nonintrusive. Every ship has their own distinctive engine rumbles and whines, but the sound effects related to the GUI and actions rarely change, if ever. Ambient music comes in and goes out every once in a while, but expect to hear nothing but silence for long stretches of playtime. Though it makes sense to have many silent periods in a space game and some high-octane tracks for combat, some more ambient music would be more than welcome. Thankfully, none of the musical cues are without visual indicators, so it’s fine to turn off music all together and play something on a media player in the background.

The Cool Little Things

While playing it’s easy to overlook some of the background details, but there are some that caught my eye and had me thinking, “They didn’t need to do this, but I like that they did.” For example, by default your character is male but in the options menu you can change your character model to be female, and different stations have different holographic in-universe advertisements and arrangements of advertisements outside of the docking ports.
 
Elite Dangerous Review Screenshot 01

“Docking, while the intercom announces ‘Loitering is a crime, punishable by death.'”

As you traverse the stars you’ll encounter NPCs, stations, and items with names referring to both real and fictional people related to the space genre, like Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly) and Azure Milk (Blue Milk, Star Wars). On the semi-technical side, screenshots can be taken at the native resolution, and also at insane 8K resolutions by hitting Alt+F10. These little things, and more, show the caring detail of the developers and make the game feel more polished. On a related note, I’ve heard that in the past there were bobbleheads that could be placed in ship cockpits; it would be nice to see those make a comeback.

Continue to Always Online, Yet A Lonely Experience >>

Page 1 | 2 | 3

Next Article