Echelon Preview

Editor's Note: This preview has been revised since its original posting to include changes to publisher/developer references and the expected date of release.

The split-second you do a 360º-rollover your eyes will cross, your butt will plaster itself into your chair, and your heart will start rattling your ribcage. Echelon, upcoming from Buka Entertainment—the publisher that recently brought us the wildly unpopular Gromada--has clearly raised its standards.  Their new futuristic flight-combat sim, developed in Russia by Madia, looks something like an Osterized version of Incoming and Battle Zone, with chunks of raw Descent thrown in for flavor and the blender set to liquefy.

That is, Echelon is smooooth. The word "echelon" refers both to a flight formation and a grade or rank within an organization. Buka and Madia could've gotten away with calling this thing Upper Echelon, though, because it promises to soar among the ranks of the best futuristic flight-combat sims yet made. Thanks to the game's big touches and little touches—dynamic lighting and a realistic physics engine, multiple in-cockpit and exterior camera angles, shell casings that fall away from the ship while firing—Echelon looks like it'll succeed at being a strong representation of what today's whup-ass computers are capable of (the spec sheet proclaims a PII-233 with 64Mb of RAM and a dinky videocard of yesteryear will be all you'll need to fire up Echelon's engines, but don't believe it . . . you'll be more comfortable with a PIII- or Athlon-based system, 128Mb of RAM, and something a little more recent from the chipworks of NVidia, 3dfx, or ATi).

Accompanying Echelon's dizzying visuals is a compelling story line that features you as a pilot in the Galactic Federation. Your prime objective is to eliminate a rebel faction known as the Velians, who have appropriated the Federation's Zero–T-portal technology. (The Zero-T portals are similar in concept to the stargate from both the movie of the same name and the TV series SG-1, except instead of enabling long-distance time travel, they enable the Federation's military to travel between planets almost instantaneously.) The Federation has as of yet been unable to regain control of the Zero-T portals because they're guarded by a mysteriously impenetrable Velian technology.

In some ways, Echelon's design recalls that of the popular 1996 title Syndicate Wars, by Peter Molyneux's Bullfrog Productions. The interface has that same wire-thin neon "mechanicalness" to it, and the futuristic environment—while wide open and filled with GeForce-quality water and sky—is highly destructible. All comparisons end there, however, because Echelon is not an RTS game, but more of an FPS flight sim, like Quake with wings. And no boundaries.

Most of the combat takes place at low altitudes, with a mix of nontraditional and standard missions, including surveillance, escort, and engagement assignments. Fly over realistic terrain that's, well . . . realistic. Meaning, not only does it look fantastic, but the different terrain affects your vehicle accordingly:  depending on your angle of approach and speed, you'll either bounce off the ground or crash into it. Dip your wings below the glassy waters for a hull-level fly-by if you like, but if you stay even part-way submerged for too long, either your systems will start to malfunction or you'll crash into an embankment.

Sound cool yet? Well, the game's audio effects are also mostly decent, although they don't yet match the fidelity of the graphics. The first intro movie, which gives the history behind the story, achieves near-cinema quality, but the narration for it nets your ears with some hard-to-discern strings of speech. Likewise, communications over the radio have a tin-foil twang to them. Thankfully, the explosions and weaponfire sounds are studio quality—almost as if the developers brought in a real laser cannon and recorded the sounds it made while discharging. Also, the notes that came with the disc promise that professional actors will fill in and smooth over the game's vocal gaps.

Although the preview build we played was an early one, the final product will include some robust team and deathmatch multiplayer features, individual multiplayer missions, a highly destructible and collision-mapped environment, and 12 different aircraft, customizable with 20 different weapons. The projected completion date is set for sometime in October, but if the game's released anytime before Turkey Day, it'll likely be buggy (controls still need plenty of tweaking for manageability, considering the game is poised to attract both hardcore flight-sim grandpas and their console-twitchy grandkids). Look for it more realistically during the first quarter of next year.