Oolite - Free version of Elite

10:00.39 - Monday 6th November 2006   (Link to This Entry)

For the past week I've been wasting my free time playing Oolite, a free, Open Source, Object Orientated version of the classic space sim, Elite. And it's pretty darned good.

Naturally, I've been playing the PC (Windows) Version and have been enjoying myself immensely. It's very much your dad's Elite with a few extra nuggets of technologamical goodness thrown in. The game uses OpenGL and features textured ships and planets throughout to bring it up to date while retaining that retro look and feel.

And the planetes - the planets! They've been updated in a recent experimental .exe to give them a much more realistic appearance complete with overlaid clouds on the surface. This .exe is a little buggy but good enough to play, so I've adopted it permanently.

This is an ongoing project which can only be a good thing. There's a honking great BBS available full of answers here where you can find general chatter, the suggestion box, info on bugfixes, expansion packs and rumours of the multiplayer version, Moolite.

It may not compare to EVE Online, but for a free retro blast, it's a winner. Download the latest version and track down that experimental 1.65 exe and have some fun.