Echelon Preview
We take an updated look at this space combat game from Buka Entertainment.
Those who have playing computer games for a while will recognize the name Echelon. Written by Bruce Carver and released in 1988 by Access Software, Echelon was one of those games that was simply too advanced for the hardware of the time. The game tried to do it all. It even included some early voice-recognition capability. Unfortunately, the Commodore 64 machine for which it was designed was unable to cope with the game's demands. Echelon was a great example of design outrunning technology.
Twelve years later, hardware has made a few advances, and space sims have made great strides as well. While the current version of Echelon is not in any way related to the old Access product, the two games share a desire to push the boundaries of the space sim genre. Echelon is being developed by Buka Entertainment, and publisher Bethesda Softworks showed the game off at E3. Now we've got our hands on a pre-alpha build. There are a lot of things missing from this version, as you'd expect from something at this stage, but the preview gave us a good idea of how the game will shape up. Our build included a training mission, a single-player mission, and a deathmatch arena.
The story behind Echelon is a familiar one of Earth threatened with extermination by an alien race. In the early 22nd century, civil war causes the Galaxy Empire to collapse. After a 150-year interregnum, a Galaxy Federation is established, and shortly thereafter contact is made with the Velians, a mysterious race that had abandoned its homeworld for unknown reasons but was now spread throughout neighboring star systems. These Valian systems were linked to the home planet, though, by means of a series of Zero-Transport (or Zero-T) stations. The Galaxy Federation also discovered that the Velians were quite advanced in bioengineering and cybernetics.
The Galaxy Federation accepted the Velians as full members and assimilated their technology. While strict codes were established by the Federation prohibiting bioengineering work on the human body, the Velian Zero-T technology was enthusiastically incorporated into the Federation's transport network. Almost every large colony had a Zero-T station, and trade prospered as a result.
The peace was not to last, though. Thirty years after first contact, the Velians seized control of all the Federation's Zero-T stations. These machines had hidden, built-in devices that the Valiens could switch on to disable and render inoperative all Federation machinery within a certain radius of the stations. The Valiens used these stations, now conveniently located on all Federation worlds, to cripple and then conquer the Federation. What stragglers were left were finished off by Valien cyborg troops.
In Echelon, you'll play as a Federation pilot desperately trying to turn the tide of battle in the war to save the human race from extinction at the hands of the Velian menace.
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- Bethesda Softworks
- Buka Entertainment
- Space Combat Sim
- Release: May 16, 2001
- ESRB: Everyone
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