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When the classic space trading and battle game Elite was released in 1984, it caused a considerable furore amongst fans of the fantasy role-playing game Traveller. Almost all of Elite's strategy and trading elements, and indeed many of your spacecraft's add-on weapons were, um, 'borrowed' from the latter game, but Acornsoft (who originally released Elite) said it didn't matter because the two games were operating in completely different fields.

That's not much of a defence any more though, as Marc Miller (the original designer of Traveller) has totally rewritten his original concept (hence the change of name), and revised it for computer conversion by Empire. Mega Traveller 1 plays not unlike a cross between Elite (surprise!) and Laser Squad, with the space travel and trading elements of the format coupled with an overhead-view maze-cum-arcade-adventure-cum-wargame section every time you land on a planet.

You control a group of up to five characters, any of which can be taken from a preset library or created yourself, using a variety of recruiting and training options. A realistic touch is that if you choose to train your characters, they get older as training progresses and start to suffer from the effects of old age. This can be fun, and allows for some neat little effects, but if you can't be bothered with all this the game has a get-started-quick option, which drops you straight onto the first planet with a basic (but still fairly useful) team of characters who you can improve as the game goes on. Even if you manage to get a few of them killed, you can always recruit new characters at many of the more advanced spaceports contained in the game, tailoring your party to your preferred game strategy by selecting characters from any of five basic career types (Army, Navy, Marines, Scouts or Merchants).

"Hang on," I hear you cry. "What do you mean, 'preferred game strategy'?" Well, I was just coming to that. One of the very best things about Mega Traveller 1 is the amount of freedom you have to conduct the game any way you like. You can recruit a gang of ex-Marines and make a living by blasting traders in space and pirating their cargos, or be a simple Merchant band and accumulate wealth by good honest bartering. Alternatively, you can train a character in gambling and stack up a forture in the casinos that litter many of the more advanced planets, or use Scouts to search for hidden treasures in some of the more out-of-the-way corners of the galaxy.

If you're smart, of course, you'll equip your party, with a good mix of skills and be prepared for any eventuality. Even if you don't do that, you can still individually train characters in skills not related to their chosen profession, from a selection of dozens ranging from sub-machine gun use to carousing (Not sure that that is? Apparently 'the character' is a sociable individual who enjoys meeting and mingling with strangers in unfamiliar surroundings'). Both of these skills can come in handy in crowded bars...

In addition to your chosen manner of keeping the wolf from the door, you can earn extra money by performing certain tasks which will be given to you by characters you meet in some of the various on-planet establishments. Scattered through the game are various shifty chappies who'll offer to buy illegal (or illegally-obtained) goods from you, or pay you for running errands for them. You can use this cash to buy various artefacts, services and armaments from shops and spaceports, or if you prefer you can simply shoot passers-by in the street and loot their bodies. Beware of this tactic on planets with a high law rating though (all planets have their own characteristics, from technological advancement ratings to environmental conditions to government structure), as you may find yourself the target of the heavily-armed police departments, who shoot first and don't bother asking questions afterwards (because their target are invariably lying in a smoking heap of charred flesh and melted spacesuit, of course).

But wait, I could fill a magazine with background and details from this game, and it still wouldn't tell you if it was any good or not. I guess it's time I got down to some serious analysis, and answered a few of the questions I've most frequently been asked about it myself.

1. Question 1. 'Does it actually feel like Elite at all?'
   Well, in many ways it does, but here there's much more emphasis on the mechanics of trading. It's got, ooh, I dunno, five times are much depth as Elite ever had.
2. Question 2. 'Isn't it likely to be really slow and dull and untidily programmed, as is usually the case with this kind of thing?'
   No, not at all. It's as fast as it ever has to be, with the possible exception of the long disk-accessing pause when you take off or land at a spaceport. Presentation has had a lot of thought put into it too - it's impossible to lose yourself in nested menus as so often happens with these games.
3. Question 3. 'Yes, but just how deep is it?'
   Well, if you took the Pacific Ocean, stacked another Pacific Ocean on top of it, and then attacked two more Pacific Oceans to either end, it wouldn't be quite as deep as Mega Traveller 1.
4. Question 4. 'Is it completely and totally fantastic?'
   Yes. Mega Traveller 1 is involving, playable, superbly-designed, and one of the most atmospheric games I've played, ever. It balances realism with gameplay, and is extremely user-friendly (now there's a phrase I haven't heard in a while) in operation.

For example, at any stage of the game pressing the right mouse button returns you immediately to the previous menu, which in a game with as many options as this can be an invaluable aid to keeping track of what you're doing. Generally the user interface is practically invisible, which is exactly how it should be.

So where does that leave us? Well, with a game that really encourages you to play it. The attention to detail is almost breathtaking, and if there's been a game with more to do in it than this one, I haven't seen it. For once, content hasn't been at the expense of professional programming - Mega Traveller 1 is beautifully put together, and free of the kind of irritating bugs that hampered, say, Railroad Tycoon. "This game is to Elite what Madonna is to Kylie Minogue."

Uppers: Huge depth, but incredibly accessible for a game of this type. A lot more playable than I expected it to be, and only as complicated as you want it.

Downers: The very long wait whenever you go into space from a planet surface (or vice versa) is a bit of a pain. Luckily, it doesn't crop up all that often.

An absolutely superb game that'll make the hours disappear as if they were seconds every time you load up and play it. Even zap-crazed maniacs should give it a try.