Oolite is a rather trashy game, pretty much just Elite with poor graphics. It’s not just that it is not polished or the gameplay is boring, but it’s screwed by really weird choices – such as barely readable black-on-red and red-on-black captions, and extremely annoying and hard-to-get-rid-of pets.
But. It is set in space, and there are lasers, what almost makes up for the trashy bits. There is trading, long and boring flights, long and boring battles, and some other activities – such as parcel delivery and occasional quests. A few ship upgrades, a bit more if you use extension packs – though it’s somewhat weird and feels like borderline cheating to add items.
It could be called an arcade game, since there’s the same shit over and over again, without any goal. Probably it was cool in 1984, when Elite was first published, but it was 32 years ago – it can be considered vintage now.
Yet, it is playable, and even enjoyable – even if it’s just because of the space and lasers.