By the time you read this review many of you will own copies of Total Eclipse and you will have found out whether or not it has lived up to expectations - I feel it has - It could definitely be described as the most hyped game in Dragon history. And the most waited for... in all senses of the word.

Previous Next

This game, let us have no bones about it, owes a hell of a lot of galactic units to a game which has yet to see the dawn on the Dragon, Elite. When Elite came out it was hailed as revolutionary, not because of its trading elements, but because they had been combined brilliantly with some of the most complex three-dimensional graphics ever seen on a home computer and a superb flight simulator which literally forced you to fly your way around the galaxy.

In Elite, battles were played out in full three-dimensional glory with many ships, all flying and fighting, on screen at the same time.

Total Eclipse has taken the trading and strategy elements of Elite, and enhanced them, to make a game of great skill (although, at its heart, it is still Kingdom). However, to anyone who has played Elite it is a very poor second; the player is left pining at the keyboard for a full 3D space Flight instead of a Cosmic Crusader-type of game in which I have never had to tackle more than a daunting one Pirate at a time.

It is unfair to compare it to Elite, however, and not a reviewer's job to say that game's good, but there's a game which these of you with more than one computer can play called... etc... etc". On its own, the game stands up to the test; is very addictive, very challenging, and very good.

You, the player, are placed in charge of a small trading vessel, under-equipped to handle the rigours of interstellar trading but upgrades, obviously, are available for prices which start at the obscene and go up from there! Your job is to raise as much cash as possible and become the top interstellar trader in the universe.

To this end, you spend much of your time wandering around the galaxy buying things cheaper than the average rate, and selling them for more. Trouble is, space travel costs money both in fuel and in ship maintenance, so if your journeys aren't profitable because you haven't picked the right planets to trade between, your fuel outlay comes to more than your profits, you lose money, and, take it from me pal, it's a dog's life when that starts happening. Everything spirals downhill until you end up out of fuel floating around some galaxy or other somewhere.

The trading is easy to get to grips with, but not so easy to master. The simplicity is obvious but serves to disguise, or make oblique the subtlety with which trade must be carried out.

I have yet to succeed in making a regular profit and my games consist mainly of flying around looking for dumped narcotics to buy, or famine-stricken planets to sell food to.

The trading is, of course, only one element of the game. Also, in the galaxy are wrecked star-ships, the once proud but now vacuum riddled remains of other such traders' careers. The aim upon finding one of these is simple; board it, get the log book, get out before the ship self destructs and take the log book to a space station to claim your reward.

There are asteroids to be mined (but there was no way I even came close to finding even a fraction of the amount necessary to buy the mining equipment!) for oil to be sold to the space stations, as well as pirates, customs officers, galactic wars and all the other things you'd expect.

The game is simple to control, with joystick or keyboard options, easy to read (as all the text has been redefined and whacked up on the PMODE4 screen) and great to play.

There was a small bug in the review copy, but if they can get it out, this could be the game of the year!!