Val: "I should use complete sentences. They want you to break Radial Lock."
Corrin: "It can't be broken."
Val: "The problem with all locks, Corrin, is that they were made to be opened."
The second release by up-and-coming developer Iridium Studios
, There Came An Echo is a real-time strategy game where you control up to four people using a combination of voice-based controls and traditional mouse-driven interfaces.
You play as the faceless Sam, accompanied by the helpful and snarky Val, a similarly faceless personality. Your mission: guide the computer programmer Corrin Webb, developer of the highly-advanced encryption scheme Radial Lock, on a journey to break his own software.
There Came An Echo provides examples of:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Happens fairly quickly when your first hideout gets attacked just after you meet Syll. The point of it is to hold out until Adam can prep the helicopter. The Tower experiences this immediately after that and you'll have to rescue them when Farrick's forces attack.
- Action Survivor: Corrin, at first.
- Cast from Hit Points: After a fashion. Each of your units has an energy meter which powers their shields and non-pistol weapons. Once the meter hits zero (and their two spare batteries are spent), the next hit will take them out.
- Easter Egg: Try telling Wil Wheaton something you may have wanted to say to him for a long time.note
- During Mission Six, saying "Activate tesslatronic remix" will change the background music to a remix done by DJ Tesslatron.
- "Open the pod bay doors, Val!"
- It's Personal: This becomes Corrin's reason to help Syll confront Farrick even though the plot is having less and less to do with him. The heroic thing to do would be to go along because it's become a big important thing, but he's just tired of Farrick throwing his life out of whack.
- MacGuffin: The Radial Lock encryption software is essentially the reason Corrin is dragged into the plot, as his life hinges on the assumption that he can decode it. It's rendered useless when Syll reveals that he already had root access to the codes it encrypted.
- Military Alphabet: The NATO alphabet, letters Alpha through Foxtrot, are used to designate waypoints.Miranda: B, C, D, E all sound too similar on the battlefield.
- Mission Control: As Sam, you provide the tactical direction for your units in the game.
- The Mole: Miranda starts out leading the guys who're attacking Corrin in the prologue. Once he's cornered at the airport, she helps him escape and reveals she was hired to protect him. Later on, when everyone is locked in a containment cell, she reveals she was keeping Farrick updated on the team's whereabouts the entire time.
- Non-Action Guy: Adam, the pilot.
- Only in It for the Money: The main reason Miranda's going with the whole thing.
- Shout-Out: The game is chock-full of these.
- "Well, Morpheus, what now?" when you help Corrin escape from Ignite Defense.
- Malcolm Reynolds is in the airport checkpoint line.
- Stealth Sequel: The game seems to be originally intended as this, but the
semi-forced rename of the prequel in question to a name that alludes more blatantly to the connection it has ends up subverting it. This game being set eight years after Before the Echo gets revealed at the midway point, with mentions of the Tower, Mir, and Naia. - Straight Gay: Adam offhandedly mentions his boyfriend when Corrin asks him if he has any family waiting for him after the job.
- Super Breeding Program: Mir initially says this was the Tower's purpose, but it was actually a lie told to conceal the fact that Syll's creation was its true goal.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Val fills this role.
