There's nothing more mysterious than the vast open reaches of space. With so many unexplored areas, rumours abound, and the one that always caught your imagination was the tale that told of a lost cosmic civilisation called the "Ancient". Such was your intrigue that, inevitably, it coerced you down your current career path of space trader and explorer.

So far, so humdrum, but on one particularly dull trip back from Tau Ceti, you encounter a strange wreck. Taking a closer look, you find a peculiar, but spellbinding, artefact, complete with an irresistible red button. As luck would have it, you're acquainted with a scholar of all things ancient and he explains that it may in fact be a portable wormhole device. Falling squarely into the subset of the population who asks "What does this button do?", you press it and are immediately warped into an unknown galaxy.

Unfazed, you follow a sequence of jump gates which lead you home, stopping only to loot ancient craft of riches and technology. You soon discover that this artefact has even more to it than meets the eye, though... this link to the Ancient has led to a quantum entanglement, meaning that death is no longer an issue for you!

Should you happen to perish, your quantum immortality will see you respawned, with all possessions from your previous existence retained. You must take advantage of this unique situation...

This reminds me of the Gold Medal winning Space Rogue's 3D polygon space combat complementing a fantastic RPG. Gates Of The Ancient unfortunately doesn't have the RPG element, but does have a speedy graphics engine with Elite-style combat.

That said, the enemy tend to adopt a simple, single tactic making them easy enough on their own and a bit hairy with a few.

I found it too shallow a game to last. A shame as 3D space games aren't in abundance on the C64 and to its technical credit it's refreshingly fast at shifting polygons. Eventually you can trade and there is a collect artefacts quest of sorts, but in th absence of a lot more depth, it does get repetitive. A nice try!

Embaring on this incredible mission through multi-dimensional toroids, I packed my bag of sandwiches (it says so in the manual!) and strapped myself into my pilot's... erm, sofa, with gusto. (The gusto was unrelated to the egg in my sandwiches.)

Things start peacefully enough, but within seconds when pirates attack (arrr-gh) it becomes clear how many comparisons Gates Of The Ancient will draw with Elite - which I replayed recently for a YouTube series but still couldn't fall in love with.

And though my initial enthusiasm over Gates Of The Ancient's stunning 3D graphics was palpable, the more I learned about trading (yawwwwn) sensors, and confusing waypoints, the more I lost interest and felt like I was testing "Elite Regurgitated".

Sorry, I'm just not a fan of games that feel like work, no matter how much admirable work went into them, though I appreciate that it's 100% free to download. Ancient certainly has tons going for it, but for this Ancient it's a few tons of the wrong stuff.

Gates Of The Ancient intrigued me from the off. At first I was wowed by the graphics, but not the gameplay. However, the more I played, the more I got into it and I can certainly see its merits.

Most interesting to me is the way death is not the end but, cribbing from other, more recent game styles, you can come back with everything you'd previously collected. The others have lamented the game's relative simplicity, but I found that appeals to me more than complex space sims.

Presentation 83%
Code system to continue your game, plenty of options and helpful instructions.

Graphics 86%
Fast-moving ships in solid 3D are impressive, but more variety would have been nice.

Sound 35%
Basic and monotonous effects and jingles.

Hookability 50%
Initial confusion with sensors and waypoints, and the slow-firing laser, make for a difficult start.

Lastability 53%
While it tries to channel the spirit of classic games, it feels very repetitive.

Overall 55%
Patience is needed to explore the galaxy. E-lite rather than Elite.