In September at EGX, I managed to get my hands on Evolve. It was a time where the hype train surrounding the game was moving into top gear, and I was intrigued. It seemed that most of what I was seeing of the game was very similar, the same gameplay regurgitated, or at the very least the same monster on the same map. I didn’t quite understand why gaming sites were covering the game so much, when it looked as though it had limited scope, and quite frankly, not much to it. Roll on 5 months later, and now the game is out I’ve had the opportunity to review it, and it is in fact, not all that bad. It isn’t without drawbacks though. Let’s take a closer look.
The 4 v 1 gameplay has been well documented - 4 human hunter, each with their own class and abilities, taking on a monster the size of a building. It is a great concept in theory, and when it works, it works really well. It involves a lot of learning of different classes, and sticking to your role is key for success when on the human team, and I fear that this is where the game stumbles, at least from my experiences on Xbox Live. But I’ll get into that in a while. The game is very well balanced when everything clicks. Neither side feels overpowered, which is a testament to the games design team, and it really is whoever is more tactically sound that will win the round. A monster will easily decimate a team of hunters that aren’t working well together, just as the hunter will fell a monster who doesn’t use the map and it’s wildlife to its advantage to stay hidden and evolve.
The game features 3 different monsters – Kraken, Wraith and Goliath, each play very differently, but each can evolve to 3 different stages. Evolving a monster involves killing and eating the wildlife on a map. Once you get to stage 3, your armour, health and abilities make it extremely difficult for the hunters to succeed, but to hit that point you need to stay one step ahead of the hunter and make it difficult for them to track you down – dead animal bodies, moving birds, noise and footprints all help the hunters pin point your position. As for the hunters, they need to try to predict the monsters next location before they get there; else they will always be a step behind. It leads to an exciting game of cat and mouse across some brilliantly designed maps – each of which feature a wide range of different terrain, and allow you to take advantage to verticality, aswell as clever use of buildings, narrow and open spaces. Each map is very large to take into account the room the monsters require and to make the hunt a challenge. And all maps also have changing effects which have an impact on how it plays – weather, visibility, random meteor strikes and more makes coming back to maps regularly feel different.
Control wise, from a hunters point of view is feels like many other first person shooters, and the controls for the monster are mapped very well making using each of their powers a breeze. Graphically the game looks very good, the maps generally use dark colours so it doesn’t exactly show off a great colour palette, but it is sharp and the frame rate holds up well during the intense battle scenes.
Now let’s move onto some negative points. Game mode wise the game is fairly limited, that being said its depth comes with the progression system and learning each character and monster. However the progression system itself feels like a grind. Luckily, I had all character unlocked form the get go, if not I would have been frustrated by only playing the same starter lot for game after game until I hit enough points to unlock the next. Some will find this fine and are a happy to play a game like that, for me, especially with lack of variation in game modes, it is difficult to see how the developers have justified the decision, and I can see this making the game stale for a lot of people quite quickly. My main issue is not with the game itself, but the online community on Xbox. Before I get into this, playing with friends and indeed random who are working as a team will be highly rewarding, and the balance between the 4 classes – assault, trapper, medic and support is brilliant, there is even a good offline mode with strong enough AI to keep you busy for a while. However if you’re like me, and don’t have 3 people with the game online at the same time, you’re going to want to go online to get the ‘best’ experience. And here in lies the problem. We are still firmly in the Call of Duty generation, where people like to run off on their own and be a hero. There is no communication between team mates, and it leads to the inevitable defeat and frustration. Now I appreciate that this is a massive generalisation and I can only base this on my own personal experience, but I really don’t think Evolve fulfils its potential on the console. PC gamers for years have been adopting the class based roles in MMO’s and the like, and are used to playing as a team to accomplish a goal, and I think the experience on that platform will be better. It can be argued that people work in teams on games such as Battlefield on consoles, but I would argue that everyone could pick the same class on that game with still get some degree of success. In Evolve it is necessary to fulfil the role of your class, and support your team mates, or fail.
Evolve is a very enjoyable game when everything clicks, and if you and a group of mates that are working together are on at the same time, I’m sure you’ll have a great time. However, as it stands, we have a very good game that is let down by the community playing it. And as such, is sitting quite low on my pile of games to play, which is a shame as Turtle Rock Studios are onto a winner here.
**Thank you to the XCN for the opportunity to review this game**