
In the space of fifty years, Earth changed from a planet on cusp of a challenging future to a world a breath away from lifelessness and plunged into an apocalyptic time of ecological disaster, global warfare and the meltdown of human civilization. This is the time of the Maelstrom.
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Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish - Spain
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Themes across 41 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
НОСТАЛЬГИЯ, играл ещё на диске без которого игра бы не запустилась
The best game!!!!
played this back wen it was windows vista disk well worth it
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Hours played at review time, across 41 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Боюсь представить, сколько часов я наиграл в неё с диска в детстве. Может, даже тысяча часов наберётся. Да, у меня в детстве тоже была лицензия! Что-то между StarCraft и Perimeter. Только сюжет прост как табуретка, и в отличие от StarCraft, текстурки на уровне "фотореализм из трёх полигонов". То есть без своего фирменного стиля. Похожа на WorldShift простотой и вайбом сюжета. Похожа вообще на все стратегии тех лет. А вот механики хоть и есть уникальные для RTS, но местами они чудовищно тупят. То вышка не понимает, куда ей стрелять, и херачит в гору, надеясь пробурить ракетами дыру до противника. То пехотинцы заблудятся в открытом поле, и станут наматывать круги из-за малейшей неровности ландшафта. Иногда юниты даже отказывались атаковать, и отвечать огнём, пока не включишь специальный "агрессивный режим" боя. Киллер-фича здесь - терраформинг. Нигде в RTS раньше не встречал такого. Возможность обкопать, или сделать насыпь в любом метре карты конечно выручает, особенно в лютых замесах с сотнями наземных жуков, от которых проще отгородиться, и потом накрыть вертолётами. Но таким образом можно случайно вырыть тактическую яму и самому себе... Красиво здесь разлетаются частицы от взрывов, смачно падает на вражеские постройки водный метеорит. Пользоваться ультами главных персонажей одно удовольствие. Здесь даже зачем-то добавили возможность играть от третьего лица за каждого из главных персонажей, нажав кнопку END. Это всё классно, но проходной сюжет, деревянная реализация катсцен, и тупорылый искусственный интеллект... Всё это бесило меня как в 10 лет, так и сейчас подавно. Особенно искусственный интеллект. Лишняя ямка на карте, и юнит сразу же теряет путь. Но разрабы постарались. В качестве технодемки, показать "вот, что мы придумали" - вполне нормальная игра.
every time i play this game it never starts up and it even froze my computer screen
Maelstrom: The Battle for Earth Begins é um jogo tão velho que da duas vez que tentei abrir tive que reiniciar o pc, ele não abre e nem fehca com alt+f4 ou pode ser finalizado com gerenciador de tarefas, por conta disso nem cheguei de fato a testar, mas não acho que perdi muito. ------------------------------ Maelstrom: The Battle for Earth Begins is such an old game that the two times I tried to open it I had to restart my PC, it doesn't open or close with alt+f4 or can be ended with the task manager, because of that I didn't even get to test it, but I don't think I lost much.
Probably one of the best games of all time, simply amazing. Unique elements never before seen in an RTS plus amazing voicelines and capturing singe player story. No reason not to buy it
Let me start off with a glaring flaw with this game. Beyond just the clunky controls, the absolutely abysmal pathfinding, the horrendous AI on both player and enemy sides, and one of the least useful UIs I've ever seen, the single player campaign has no difficulty select and no autosaves. Now, that doesn't seem bad, and it wouldn't be. But each of the aforementioned elements combine together into a voltron of absolute crapjank that is completely, utterly frustrating. There is a difference between a challenging game versus one that is hard for the sake of being hard. Additionally, being an obscure RTS game from the mid-2000s from russia, there is little to no english documentation from the game, and what little there is can mostly be found on very shady and sketchy websites. The Controls themselves are also extremely, extremely barebones and honestly just completely baffling, especially because it seems to be in service of a 3rd Person direct control mode that sounds neat on paper but ends up being absolutely pointless and useless. I am not good at RTS games; I mostly play single-player stuff on easy, and don't venture into the multiplayer at all, because I simply don't have the skillset for processing a lot of micromanagement at once. I had trouble with a few of the remnant campaign missions. And then I got to the sixth mission, which has the player defend against waves of enemies only for it to get wiped out and the player have to escort two hero units using some of the worst stealth mechanics possible, and if they are a pixel out of line, they die. Again, no autosaves, and no difficulty select. I'm usually fine with linear campaigns that unlock additional factions and storylines as you progress, but this is not a roadblock; it's a f*cking mountain. There will be people who say this is a hidden gem. It is absolutely not. It is a frustrating mess of jank and aged mechanics that exemplify the worst elements of real time strategy games, but with gimmicks that bog the game down even further. I paid around 50 cents USD for this, and I still feel ripped off because the game developers were either incompetent or malicious. This is not a good game, or even a decent game. This is the absolute worst thing a game can be: dissapointing even with no expectations. Everything is fighting against you to the point where it feels like the game actively wants the player to quit. It is not fun at all. Don't even bother buying it on sale, or even pirating it. It literally is not worth the hard-drive space. [b]Addendum[/b] After nearly finishing the game (I hope), I can honestly say my opinion still stands. Each faction feels gimmicky to the point where they become boring. Using the squad mechanics makes the ability for the Ascension's vehicles to transform pointless, since you can't access the needed abilities and they're not bound to hotkeys, making it more or less micromanagement, and the aliens play in a way that makes molasses seem fast, as unit production requires calling down batches of eggs and selecting the exact units you want instead of queueing them up. It's honestly just really clunky, and not in an interesting way. The story isn't even passable or interesting, being extremely forgettable and the world itself is just boring.
Очень классная игра. Играл в детстве. Очень классный сюжет
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Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.