CAPTAIN'S Log stardate 30-10-4619: Having outfitted my ship and selected my crew I am preparing for my most dangerous mission yet. Apart from seeking out strange new worlds we are expected to assess them for future colonisation.

Despite the urgency of this mission I have been given little money to outfit my ship. Hopefully we will be able to collect enough valuable minerals to trade in for something useful on our return.
Captain's Log (supplemental): I have promoted Perky to First Officer. He is only an android but seems more capable than the rest of the crew. Mr Waffle is particularly poor at his duties - perhaps I should have spent more money on training him. Unfortunately it is impossible to train androids so when I have the money I'll have to scrap Perky. Ho hum, the trials of being a captain.

Captain's Log stardate whatever: We've been in deeps space for a while now. I find the ship really easy to handle everyone is taking orders properly.
Due to the inexperience of my navigator we had a few near misses with flux holes. These can instantaneously transport the ship to another part of the universe, but we may not have the fuel to get back. Eridium consumption is pretty high with our inefficient engines - we'll have to invest in some high technology when we get back.
Supplemental: Did i notify Microlink of my change of address?

Captain's Log stardate 5-1-4620: Made orbit around a likely planet but realised just in time that if I landed we would never be able to take off again due to fierce gravity.
Next planet in this system seems more hopeful. According to sensor data it might be suitable for colonisation, but I think I'll pop down to the surface and give it the once over personally.
If a couple of colony ships full of telephone sanitisers turned up here all ready to go and discovered there was no surface water, things might get a little rough for me back at base.
Supplemental: Made good planetfall. Opened the viewport on the way down but although the view was quite pretty it took an awful long time. Think I'll give it a miss in future. The little All Terrain Vehicle works well. I put on the auto-scoops and we have excavated lots of valuable promethium deposits.

Second Lieutenant Mr Aj suffered some minor injuries when we got caught in a wind storm but he'll pull through - probably. We have encountered several types of organic life forms. I stunned a couple with the vehicle's weapons and we will take them back for vivisection - if we don't get too hungry on the trip home.

Captain's Log stardate unknown: Dear diary, we had a pretty lucky escape down on the planet's surface. A snowstorm blew up and we lost track of where I'd parked the ship. When the clouds lifted so to speak we discovered we were but a few scant yards from the ship.
We had to let it but no one was lost or injured. Unfortunately this means the ATV was lost and all the stuff we had collected. Someone's not going to be very pleased when we get back.

Captain's Log stardate 1-4-4620: On our way home we encountered an alien vessel. I dropped the shields and offered the paw of friendship via the communications officer. Unfortunately since he was so badly trained I could only understand every third word of the other chap's message so I'm not really sure what he was on about. If it was that important he'll send a telegram of something.

Supplemental: The good ship Amiga Computing pulled alongside and asked me to report on how my vessel was behaving. I had to tell them in respect of graphics and sound it was not overwhelmingly endowed but that this was incidental to the main task of investigating, exploiting and colonising a big universe.

This was shortly before they sailed straight into a black hole of course. Shame. Nice ship. Looks like a fish, steers like a cow...

Starflight comes complete with a photo of a haggard looking group of American programmers dressed in spacesuits, but looking more like MacDonalds crew members. This appears to be part of a guilt trip designed to show how much sweat and honest toil has gone into crafting this humble programme. All this is made double necessary because this is a game set in one of the dodgiest area known to software - it's an Elite clone.

The question of why someone is masochistic enough to attempt to better an all-time classic like this I'll leave to clinical psychology. You begin your quest in the round, anonymous bowl of the spaceport where you have a minimal amount of money to recruit a crew and equip your spacecraft. This is accessible enough and graphically much nicer than its illustrious predecessor, although it won't set any knees at Cinemaware trembling.

You then set off on an interplanetary flight by dragging a mouse around the solar system, this once again is easy and a big, fat clue is given to you on your communications system at the spaceport that the neighbouring planet might be worth the once over.

Once you've established an orbit around the planet a revolving planet appears on which you can attempt a landing. One of the "features" of the game is the scenic landing series where you gradually get closer to the planet surface. A bit too gradually for my liking, but you can at least turn this effect off and just plonk down on the ground. You can then get onto your 4 X 4 range rover/mining machine and explore the surface. This is one of the best aspects of Starflight, as you zip around in search for bounty. Then, much like Elite, it's time to return to the starport to flog what you found.

The systems are detailed with a good balance of interesting and not so interesting planets to explore which makes the gameplay not easy, but not too frustrating either. All round, it's an easier game to get into than Elite, and well designed,. Where it loses out is in the space combat which is entirely formulated and really pretty dull (especially if you get blown away). As you progress your options are made clear, whilst still leaving you a good margin of choice which gives the game a more RPG-like touch.

Even taking into account the total unoriginality of the overall concept, EA have done an excellent job of making this as playable as possible. I don't think it'll become a classic, but Starflight made a very passable distraction and will almost certainly have you extracting your money's worth of entertainment as easily as your terrain vehicle scoops up minerals.

Recent studies of the southern regions of your home planet, Arth, have uncovered remarkable evidence of an ancient subterranean culture that existed thousands of years ago. This all-but-forgotten race of humans apparently arrived on Arth in a giant spaceship, Noah. They were seemingly escaping annihilation by three alien races: Uhleks, Gazurtoids and Phlegmaks. The ship came from a planet that until now only existed in legend: the planet Earth.

Suddenly intent on discovering their roots, the population of Arth has Interstel embark on a huge exploration experiment. Having rediscovered and mastered earth's knowledge of space-travel, Interstel charge a team of trainee space cadets (including yourself) with the task of exploring the galaxy to find out exactly what happened to Earth.

The project isn't government-aided and funds are relatively low, hence you're only equipped with a basic ship to begin with. It's up to you and your crew to find and bring back minerals, alien artifacts and new lifeforms, trading them for cash to buy ever-better ships to explore deeper and deeper into space.

You begin your vast and intrepid commission sage and sound in Starport. Represented by a little man in a red space suit, you may choose from a number of options while docked here: you could visit the bank to admire your assets or pop into the trade depot to buy a new engine, shields, laser cannon, or missiles for your ship. However, it's recommended that you purchase four boring cargo pods for your ship before you do anything else. The drop in on personnel and get yourself a crew. You've a choice of human, reptilian, insect-like, plant-like or android personnel. Each specialising (but still requiring expensive training) in navigation, science, engineering, medicine, and so on.

Your ship (which you have the pleasure of naming before it's launched) comes equipped with an engine (of sorts) and a little fuel. So once you've assigned your crew their posts, you may boldly go where everybody else seems to be going. It makes sense to explore your own solar system before heading off into deepest space, to get used to the game controls. Also you can collect some quite profitable minerals, allowing you to upgrade your ship for when you feel ready to spread your wings.

Collecting minerals, artifacts and so on from planets is achieved by piloting a terrain vehicle around your ship's landing site (fuel limits restrict travel), picking up items and info as you go.

As play progresses and you discover more and more about your immediate surroundings, little snippets of information come your way concerning the instability of Arth's sun. And it seems this is more than a natural phenomenon. Your task takes a more urgent pace as you need to discover as much as possible about your galaxy, hoping for clues as to what is happening to your sun before it goes nova.

Play is slow to begin with and watching your ship land on planets takes an age. However, the landing sequence may be turned off and once you begin to explore outside Arth's system Starflight becomes very interesting.

There are 270 systems and 800 planets waiting to be discovered, with minerals, ancient (and recent) ruins, alien lifeforms, and artifacts there for the plundering.

Fortunately for the sake of lasting interest, not everything goes your way: space combat (or its avoidance) plays a large part in Starflight as do other elements derogatory to your success such as running out of fuel or energy (easier to do than you might like), the crushing gravity of some planets, engine or communications failure, planetside storms, and hostile lifeforms; it's a hard life in the Interstel Space Corps.

Although sound is pathetic and animation poor, Starflight is intriguing to play. There exists a real sense of discovery and even excitement as you dare to travel further from Arth. And it's a real good feeling to leave Starport in control of a ship so well decked out with shields, lasers, missiles, and a thrusting, throbbing mega-engine that she could give even the Enterprise a tough time... If only I had Kirk's crew...

Really-useful-information-dept:
A C64 version should be available in March, priced £14.99.