Aside from the crazy price, it's great to see this old chestnut back in the arena and demonstrating that gameplay beats flashy graphics every time. For those of you who don't know what Elite is (well, the sandwich man didn't know - but then he's a fool anyway, albeit in a rather sinister, overly-cheerful way), it's the seminal open-ended space combat/adventure/trading game that launched a million virtual careers for pirates, traders, bounty hunders and miners back in the early '80s.

It's the first game I was ever addicted to, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it still has a lot of the old attraction (i.e. I spent far longer playing it than was strictly necessary for this review).

You're after three things in Elite: money, a bad reputation and a clean driving licence (just like in real life, eh, kids?) and by piloting your spaceship through a ludicrous number of planets in each of eight different galaxies that's what you'll get.

Elite looks horridly 8-bit - although the graphics broke new boundaries when the game first came out they look very jaded now - but there's still enough to give you several months of intriguing fun or, as in my case, teary, nostalgia-filled evenings in front of your Amiga. All this on one disk - and they still have the nerve to ask £17 for it. Tch, eh?

Excellent gameplay? Yes, most certainly. Galaxy-spanning action? Yes, indeedy. A bloody good time cruising the infinite vastness of cold, dark space? Yes again, no doubt about it. Value for money? No. No. No.