
	Platform PC Genre Strategy Developer KDV Games Publisher Codemasters ETA September 2006
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Maelstrom

Earth has been the victim of countless disasters in video games, especially in the science fiction genre. We’ve been invaded by aliens, devastated by environmental disasters of our own doing, and subjugated by huge multinational corporations with an unquenchable thirst for profit. Now Earth can be subjected to all three of these at the same time in Maelstrom, a new strategy game from KDV Games, creators of the PC real time strategy game, Perimeter. Taking the innovative ideas from their previous effort through terraforming, and unit development, while also adding destructible environments, Maelstrom aims to give strategy fans a fast paced, unique take on the genre.

As mentioned, the game pits the Earth in a rather precarious situation as it faces a handful of threats simultaneously. Things were actually looking quite rosy for a time too. Earth was in a sort of golden age, with a bright, highly advanced future on the horizon, but in about 50 years time, global warming and warfare destroyed everything, and then the Hai-Genti came. With that come a number of factions that players can choose to control.

First, there are the Remnants who, as their names suggest, are all that’s left of human society, favoring urban combat as their means of trying to reclaim the planet. Due to their situation, the Remnants prefer to use stealth and guerrilla tactics to advance their goals, as well as hacking into Ascension systems to control their units when the need for greater firepower arises.

Next we have the Ascension, who are a technologically advance group of super soldiers formed by the Ascension Corporations. This faction commands what are being called the mechmorphs, which are extremely powerful war machines with the ability to transform, thus allowing them to adapt to new situations better. Not only does the Ascension’s weaponry pack a punch, it is also highly mobile, allowing them to pack up and move elsewhere with relative ease.

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Lastly, there are the Hai-Genti, a race of aliens trying to take over Earth, after their own home world was ravaged by an ecological disaster. This faction favors biotechnology as its tool for victory, sending spores to the Earth that will grow new creatures to attack the Remnants and the Ascension. The Hai-Genti thus have amore primal,

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bloodthirsty military at their disposal that is largely treated as disposable meat for the Remnants and Ascension’s cannons. As such, there’s more of a mentality that if a bunch of Hai-Genti die, who cares, just grow more. Also, there appears to be an element of evolutionary growth in this faction, as opposed to, say, the technological transformations of the Ascension.

Once players have picked a faction, it’s time to get down to the business of playing. Here is where one will first see the terraforming abilities present in Maelstrom, as players can shape the environment around them in a number of ways. First, one can create anything from lakes to ice fields to tornados (weather control is counted as part of terraforming); however, now this process is taken even further than that found in Perimeter by allowing players to destroy these creations (and a whole bunch more) through the game’s destructible environments. The extent to which either of these abilities is possible is unknown at this time.

While advancement in most strategy games comes through scaling some sort of a branching technology tree, it appears that Maelstrom will favor the leveling-up route, as units gain experience, and slowly become stronger. What will be interesting to see is just how these units will become stronger as they go up in levels. Will players choose new abilities for them? Do they morph into highly specialized units? We’ll just have to wait and see about that.

Perimeter was a very impressive North American debut for KDV Games, and now it looks like they are trying to improve upon that with Maelstrom. If they can manage this, RTS fans could have a treat in store come this Fall.

Mr. Nash

(July 31, 2006)