Out of that Al Gore-meets-Dr. Strangelove muddle come this action-oriented real-time strategy game's only two surviving human factions, one known as the Ascension—basically the last hurrah of the "evil corporation with the latest tech toys" motif (i.e. "the Empire")—and another, the Remnants, a ragged group of "go democracy!" insurgents with cruder, stealthier technology (i.e. "the rebel alliance"). Into that mix come the Hai-Genti, late-to-the-party extraterrestrials with a hankering for water (i.e., "let's put in a planet-sized swimming pool!") and technology capable of backing up their aquatic threats. Put all three into a story developed by British writer James Swallow (author of various shared-universe books) and you get a few complementary campaigns with a smattering of stand-alone skirmish maps and up to six-player online multiplayer.

Intended as the game's "introductory" faction, the Remnants employ familiar RTS tropes like harvesting resources and placing buildings in a static, defensive stance before venturing out (or buttoning up) to do battle with the enemy. The technologically superior Ascension are by contrast highly mobile, with units that can change at will into other units like tech labs, vehicle assembly plants and even central HQ cores capable of simply relocating if the going gets tough or the pastures look greener elsewhere. Each faction also has the capacity to terraform the terrain, scooping it out or piling it up as desired to form "natural" barriers for bases or to manipulate the environmental "side effects" of technology used by the Hai-Genti.

A byproduct of the Hai-Genti's Mutagen Pumps, that side effect transforms whole swathes of a map into rippling lakes of water, progressively raising the levels until they spill over even fairly steep terrain and drain downward, following the contours of the map. The challenge for either human faction is to keep the water out by building high and widely enough, or to redirect its flow to undermine other Ascension or Remnant opponents. While the computer AI doesn't appear to deploy the terraforming tactic in skirmish games, it becomes a crucial form of harassment against any human player.

Good ideas trump goofy ones

Never underestimate the power of nonexistent marketing and low production values on the minds of cynical, impatient gamers. On paper and without much of a PR push, Maelstrom certainly sounds like it ought to be in the budget heap along with junk like Heroes of Annihilated Empires and Cops 2170: The Power of Law. But in practice, it turns out to be surprisingly well made and unorthodox, if not entirely free of design goofs and bugs.

You have to read the marketing-speak carefully. "Some of the most progressive visuals ever seen in a video game." Not the best (because they aren't), but the most progressive, i.e., "outside-the-box." It's a subtle distinction, but assuming it's true (and it is), it's key to whether you'll like Maelstrom. And it's not an easy game to warm to out of the box. After a few hours muscling through the hammy Remnant campaign, you'll probably get irritated with clunkers like an option to control your two or three (per faction) hero units in first person. It sounds cool, but the controls are laggy, aiming's wobbly, and you can't swap your hero's special abilities without switching back to the external cam. There's probably a special "why didn't you leave it on the ..." shelf in hell reserved for features like this.

Bugs are also plentiful. Goofs in the maps let you occasionally bypass critical mission points and get a few objectives down the road before the logic snap hangs the game or simply makes a mission unwinnable. You'll also have one heck of a time getting units into anything like formations, because they can't stop rearranging themselves, like people trying to walk around each other but locked in a synchronized sidestep shuffle.

But Maelstrom is more than the sum of these faults, thanks to its compelling and utterly malleable landscapes. Understanding these is absolutely essential for mastering the game. Where else, for instance, has changing the shape of the map ranked higher than simply trotting out units as fast as possible? Where else are resource models based on a time-driven model (sun power peaks at noon and dwindles at midnight) that forces you to queue up new units temporally as well as sequentially? And what else has so many centrally imperative environment-morphing abilities, like evaporating water, freezing it, melting ice, gouging valleys, raising hills, flooding areas with "water meteors" and summoning vehicle-tossing tornadoes?

Don't get me wrong, the glitches need to be fixed, pronto, and some of the features (OK, really just first-person mode) are probably irredeemable. But if you're honestly sick and tired of flashy over-hyped RTS games and have a sufficiently open mind, consider Maelstrom. It's better than you've been hearing, if you've heard of it at all.