Maelstrom Hands-On - Single-Player
Post-apocalyptic landscapes are a familiar sight in games, and a war-torn Earth is going to be the setting of Maelstrom, a sci-fi real-time strategy game where two human factions battling for supremacy must suddenly deal with an alien invasion. Maelstrom is being developed by Codemasters and developer KD Visions, two companies that previously collaborated on the innovative 2004 strategy game Perimeter. Although Maelstrom borrows some concepts from Perimeter, it's a vastly different experience in many respects, as we discovered by playing a work-in progress version of the game.
While Perimeter was packed with all sorts of interesting ideas, Codemasters has admitted that the game was perhaps a bit too exotic for its own good. As a result, Maelstrom adheres to the traditional real-time strategy formula. The game is set in some near-distant future, after a mysterious cataclysm wipes out most of civilization. Two human factions remain. There's the high-tech and wealthy Ascension, which is basically a megacorporation that wants to rebuild the planet its own way. And then there is the scruffy Remnant, freedom-loving survivors who oppose the Ascension. So basically you have a class struggle between the haves and the have-nots. But then there are the Hai-Genti aliens that unleashed the cataclysm to start turning the planet into their new home.
The game is playable from the perspective of all three factions, and the overarching narratives tie each of the separate campaigns together. As you'd expect, the factions are all fairly distinct from one another. The Ascension has futuristic weapons and vehicles, as well as sleek buildings; the Remnant looks like it has a mishmash of hand-me-down military vehicles and ramshackle structures. The Hai-Genti are fittingly alien because their structures seem to erupt from spores dropped from the sky, and their units are all organic in nature.
The mission structure appears to follow the same formula seen in most real-time strategy games. You start with a handful of units, some exposition explains that you've got to build up a base and destroy the enemy, and it leaves you from there. Resource gathering varies for each of the three factions. For instance, the Remnant build solar collectors to generate power, capture water stations for H2O, and recover salvage from destroyed vehicles. The high-tech Ascension also rely on solar power and water, though its third resource is DNA. Because the Ascension like to tinker with genetics, it needs plenty of DNA material, which can be found by harvesting it from the underground bunkers where human survivors hide. The third and final faction, the alien Hai-Genti, rely on water and genetic material, which is recovered from the bodies of their dead enemies.
You'll use these resources to build a variety of structures that let you research new technology, such as weapon and unit upgrades, as well as build a variety of infantry units and combat vehicles, which you'll use to explore the map and crush the enemy. The Ascension can build futuristic combat vehicles armed with lasers, while the Remnant looks like it uses run-down versions of today's military equipment, such as Black Hawk helicopters and paladin artillery pieces. The Hai-Genti are reminiscent of the Zerg from Starcraft because their insect-like units specialize in melee attacks. We did see some cool effects, such as an alien flying unit creating a miniature tornado that sucked in all ground units below. Each faction also has various hero units, which are basically main characters who help drive the narrative. These hero units have unique powers, such as being able to heal soldiers or boost the fighting abilities of nearby units. They can also level up and become more powerful over time. Of course, this is all pretty standard for the real-time strategy genre. Maelstrom does incorporate some ideas from Perimeter, such as the ability to terraform land, though in this case, it doesn't play a central role in the gameplay. Mainly, you can use terraforming to make more room to expand the base.
You can zoom the camera in and change the angle to make it look like a third-person action game. Indeed, a "direct control" feature lets you take command of individual heroes and play as them from a third-person perspective; you use the keyboard for movement; the mouse for looking around and shooting. This will be useful in some missions because you might need to move a cloaked agent past enemy sentries.
Aside from the single-player campaign, Maelstrom will offer skirmish play, as well as a multiplayer suite, though the latter wasn't available in the work-in-progress version of the game that we played. Still, it's clear that Codemasters and KD Visions are aiming for the traditional real-time strategy crowd with this sci-fi game. How well the game actually does this will be determined in February when the game ships.
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