Long past the time when most sensible gamers would have beaten a path back to Supreme Commander, Rise of Legends and Dawn of War, a modicum of excitement and originality finally shows-up in the wobbly bio-form of the Hai-Genti. Rock-pool aliens with abundant limbs and a penchant for H2O, they are just about weird and violent enough to distract you from the secondhand mission plots and the various AI and command-and-control deficiencies. Yes, Maelstrom manages to botch some crucial fundamentals. We’ve seen pollen-drunk bees navigate greenhouses more skillfully than some of the units in this game and how the☂y path find their way from ba🌄se to front. The lack of formations and the awkward squad creation system add to the chaos of battle in the same way that dead flies add to the protein content of soup.