This article could have simply said ‘Maelstrom=Awesome’ and I would feel comfortable that I’d done my job relaying to you the spirit of the game.
Maelstrom is an RTS entry scheduled to hit in the fall. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic near-future earth where, for a change, the planet isn’t devastated by a nuclear war, but by an environmental holocaust triggered by us and our energy wasting ways (try saying that three times fast.) Apparently, Al Gore’s movie is too little, too late.
There are three playable factions in the game, all trying to take over the world:
A powerful, fascist, high tech corporation (think Weyland–Yutani) of mecha using, clone trooping soldiers called the Ascension.
A rag tag band of resistance fighters (think Red Dawn) led by an ex-naval commander called the Remnants (a name that sounds like the next big indie rock band.) They don’t get the super high tech stuff, but they do blow things up real good.
And finally, a race of aliens, the Hai-Genti, who have screwed up their own planet and are now headed to Earth to set up some new digs. They do the biomass everything-we-build-is-alive thing.
Now that of itself is pretty standard RTS fare. What makes Maelstrom special is the game environment. For instance, Solar Power is one of the resources you have to manage in the game. But there is day and night in the game, and funny, you don’t get very much solar power at night. Or, you need to get across the river but the bridge is out? Try freezing it and the walking across it. Yeah, you can freeze the water, and if enemy troops are in the water at the time, they get stuck. Need to turn the ice back to water? Blow something up; fire works wonders against ice. Water flooding your base? Again, blow something up, and evaporate the water.
The units themselves also have a great design. The Remnants use technology that is basically what we go to war with today: Humvees, The Paladin self propelled artillery unit, etc. The Ascension units are dual-purposed transformers, with scout bikes that turn into emplaced guns or mecha units that turn into jets. The Alien units are scaled to be huge and tower over the human troops. It all makes for the troops to be easily identified and unique in respect to what they do. What’s more, the units will gain experience as they fight, so that veteran teams will outperform novice ones.
So overall, I was really impressed at the look of the game. Of course, at the end of the day, what will make or break this game is its playability and replayability: are the forces balanced, are the maps well thought out, are the missions challenging. However, if they gave as much thought to game mechanics as to game design then Maelstrom will be a stellar game.
posted by maddmatt
