Title: Evolve
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox One,
PC
Release Date: February 10, 2015
ESRB: M
In the future, humans
travel from planet to planet in order to keep their species alive.
Setting up colonies and factories, “The corporation” siphons the
natural resources that each world provides. It is only when man
lands upon the planet Shear that things become different. Shear is
home to giant monsters that have the ability to grow and “evolve”
after each feeding, the likes of which mankind has never seen before
and the likes of which do not take kindly to mankind's visit. The
beasts begin to terrorize and kill humans and it becomes apparent
that if mankind is to conquer these monstrosities they must employ
hunters with the necessary skills to bring them down. Teams of
hunters are sent across Shear, hoping to claim the bounty placed upon
each beast's head. It is a battle of species where life, dominion,
and bragging rights of the food chain are the prizes.
Evolve's story is simply
there to justify the game's existence. This isn't necessarily a bad
thing, but if you bought this game looking for a story with rising
action, a climax, and a conclusion, you made the wrong choice. In
fact, everything from the paragraph above was summarized from the
game's instruction manual, which has just fourteen sentences
explaining what is going on. The game does little to tell you why
exactly you are doing what you're doing. Rather it just throws you
onto Shear's surface and tells you to kill the opposing force.
Hunters are given personalities that do a good job of giving them
different characteristics and there is a cutscene prior to you
jumping into things that slightly explains why you are there. But
the game says absolutely nothing about the background of the
monsters. Again, not a bad thing and not a complaint. It just seems
odd to include a story to the game at all if it is only hidden within
the instruction manual and is barely evident on the disc.
Though Hunters are all
given unique personalities, that doesn't mean that they are all
likable characters. Some of the dialogue is painfully cliché and
lines such as, “it may be desperate, but nothing is impossible”
are enough to have your eyes rolling in circles. Characters are
voiced well enough, but once again each character is just another
cliché. Character's such as the confident commander, the mysterious
amazonian, and the hillbilly with an itchy trigger finger are all
accounted for in Evolve. But the worst of them all is the dumb
Austrian, Markov. His terrible Schwarzenegger impression repeats the
same annoying one-liners over and over and there is only so many
times you can hear him say, “all we need do is find beast,”
before you want to throw your console out the window.
Repetitive dialogue comes
from all the characters though. As you play through the game,
characters have conversations with each other. This is interesting
at first, but these interactions quickly become old as you hear the
same jokes and lines over and over. It would have been nice to see
more diversity added to these conversations so that they feel dynamic
and spontaneous. It is as if these characters are just passing time,
waiting for something to happen.
Evolve is a good looking
game, but it won't exactly “wow” you. Character models look good
and worlds are densely packed with terrain and wildlife, but the
visuals don't jump off the screen. That being said, something that I
started to notice very early on was a lack of diversity in the
different maps. While some offer more vertical terrain or a desert
skin and maps are huge, most of the them feel very similar. Despite
what map they said I was in, I constantly felt I was running through
the same forest with only the changing weather offering any slight
differences. If Evolve takes place on the whole planet of Shear, it
just doesn't make sense that the game couldn't offer a larger variety
of maps to play in. It's not something that takes away from the
overall gameplay, but it does become repetitive having to look at the
same jungle style map over and over.
Evolve consists of two main
game modes: A five round “campaign” called, Evacuation, and a
quick game mode called, Skirmish. These pit a four player team, the
hunters, who all have different jobs and skills, against a monster
that has the ability to evolve into two higher forms the more it
eats. Single matches rarely last over half an hour and playing
through all five rounds of Evacuation usually takes between an hour
and two hours.
The team of hunters
consists of an Assault, whose job is to fire as many rounds into the
beast as possible, a Trapper, who is in charge of catching and
capturing the monster so that the other player's can fight it without
it getting away, a Support, who shields the team, and a Medic, who
tries to keep the team at max health as much as possible. Each
player has a very distinct role in the match and it's worth it to
experiment with each role to find out which one suits your playstyle.
You may find that you rarely lose with one or two of the classes but
can barely even play as the others.
In order for the Hunters to
win, each team member is expected to do their part. If a Medic is
trying to take the part of the Assault rather than keeping a close
eye on everyone's health, there is no chance of them winning because
one-fourth of the team neglected their role. Evolve is a game that
demands player communication during matches and necessitates that
each player be on the same page in order to win. Evolve can be
immensely frustrating when no one on the team is speaking to each
other and the monster just demolishes the whole party. But, Evolve
has some of the best satisfaction I've felt in a game when a team is
constantly talking through their roles and working together to bring
down the monster. The game is made to put Hunters at a disadvantage
under the size and power of the beast. But when everyone understands
their role in the match and can adequately communicate what they're
best strategy is, bringing down the monster becomes a much smoother
and more fun task.
Something that can become
annoying is the time spent running around aimlessly looking for the
monster. There are things such as foot prints that you can follow as
well as being alerted to the sound of the monster startling birds,
but since the monster moves so much quicker than the hunters, it's
often hard to catch up with him. After a while, it feels like the
whole match has been spent running in circles without ever engaging
in combat. These moments can become extremely tedious and boring and
it would have been nice to see the game offer easier ways to track
the monster or just faster ways to traverse each map,
Playing as the Monsters is
not immediately the power trip it may appear to be. Initially, the
Monster is small and staying far away from the hunters is the best
approach. The plentiful wildlife that populates Shear allows for
quick evolution, but even once you do reach the second stage, the
Monster still has weaknesses, and it's important to pick your battles
wisely. If the hunters do engage you during these first two stages,
Monsters are incredibly agile and giving way to a cat and mouse chase
with the Hunters can be exhilarating as you try to dodge bullets and
reach the final stage of evolution. Using the Monster's far-reaching
smell ability allows for you to stay on track of Hunter locations as
well as find out the location of wildlife, but it is all left to the
player to strategically travel the map and evolve. It is with the
third stage that the monster becomes a complete power house. Though
it is not impossible for the hunters to beat a stage-three monster,
it is highly unlikely. Once at this point, the monster towers over
the map and combining its move sets makes short work of each hunter.
Reaching this level is an awesome reward for being patient with the
game as it makes you work for the hunt and doesn't let the stages
come quickly. It is totally worth the effort as you demolish
everything that tries to stand in your way.
Since Evolve's five
playable character's have such different characteristics, the game
tries hard to make sure that the player gets as much time with his or
her favorite class. At any time you can rank your favorite ways to
play the game and the game tries to place you in matches that will
cater to your desires. I found that I was often put into matches
that had me playing as my first two choices and rarely did I have to
play as the characters I wasn't fond of. This feature does an
excellent job of keeping player's in their favorite shoes as well as
keeping things fair and not forcing them to have to be stuck with a
class that they hate. The game keeps a good rotation between
classes, allowing players to get a majority amount of time with those
that they prefer.
In Evolve's Evacuation
mode, monsters have over run Shear and Hunter's have five days to
save as many lives as possible. Players compete in five different
games that have Hunters doing such things as destroying monster eggs
and saving survivors all the while being hunted by an AI or player
controlled monster. Match duration is usually dictated by how long
it takes for the Monster to evolve to the third stage. If the
hunters can complete the objective before the third evolution, they
win. But, if the monster is to evolve three times, usually the win
goes to it as it can kill the team quickly. Each of Evacuation's
games do a good job of maintaining a quick pace. Hunters have an
objective to complete before being killed by the monster and the
monster wants to kill the hunters before they complete their
objective. Each game has fair variation that doesn't allow
Evacuation to get old or feel repetitious.
The coolest draw to
Evacuation mode is the dynamic events that happen during missions,
based on who wins each match. Boasting “800,000 total
possibilities,” current matches are influenced by the ones before
it. For example, if you allow the monsters eggs to hatch in one
mission, the monster may have minions in the next. Or if you are
able to defeat the monster before it reaches stage three, the Hunters
may have active turrets that help them to bring the beast down in the
next game. These give players real incentive to do their best in
matches to get an extra boost and the addition of these events really
can change the tide of a match entirely. If one team, monster or
hunter, wins the majority of matches in Evacuation mode, the opposing
team's chances of survival become terrible, at best.
The highlight of Evolve is
its Skirmish mode. Skirmish is a quick game mode that's only
objective is kill before being killed. Hunters are to kill the
monster before it reaches stage three. The monster is to evolve and
kill all four hunters before they can return the favor. Monsters can
also destroy a power-relay once it reaches stage three which will
automatically win the match. Matches rarely last over thirty
minutes, but they quickly become addicting and the main reason I kept
putting the disc back in.
As mentioned above, Evolve
relies on communication between the four people playing as the
hunters and this is most evident in the skirmish mode. When a team
works, it really works in Evolve. The most fun I had with the game
came when my team and I were working together to bring the monster
down, learning from our losses, and experimenting with different ways
to play. Whenever I was a part of a team that didn't communicate
well or not at all, we always lost. Always. But this always made me
want to try again. To see if the next match would be different, to
see if I would find a team that I was compatible with. This quickly
builds up an addiction and it becomes hard to pull away from the
game. Evolve plays great and has solid mechanics, but also, it makes
its players think. It forces players to use strategy and work
together to take down something much bigger than themselves. I feel
comfortable in saying that Evolve's Skirmish mode is absolutely
amazing and entirely worth buying the game for.
Evolve does feature a
single player option that allows for a player to play all of the game
modes by themselves. This is a good way to level up different
characters or monsters, but if you have the option to play
multiplayer, then there's little point in playing alone. The AI
isn't very strong and defeating the monster isn't necessarily a
challenge, even if it has evolved to the third stage. Similarly, the
hunter AI is weak and you often find them running around aimlessly
and shooting at wildlife for no particular reason. Evolve is a game
that is meant to be experienced online and if you have that option
than there is no real reason to go it alone.
Something that should
should be noted and commended is how well the game runs. I spent
countless hours online with Evolve and rarely saw a stutter in the
frame rate, minimal visual issues such as texture pop-ins, and
absolutely no glitching. Very rarely the game would have a slight
lag, but it was never enough to detract from the over-all experience.
Evolve, from day one, ran exceptionally well and I never worried
about a match crashing or latency with the connection ruining my
experience. When numerous games are coming out requiring hefty day
one patches, it is awesome to see a game come out of the gate working
perfectly, especially one that puts such a large emphasis on online
play.
Instead of inundating
players with countless game modes, haphazardly thrown together into a
sloppy product, Evolve has given players only a few play options, but
refined the gameplay to near perfection. The game refuses to let
players run in guns blazing and expect a reward. Evolve requires
thought and teamwork. The game gives you a great sense of
satisfaction when all the pieces fall into place. When the pieces
don't, it's hard to give up, because you wonder if the next match
will be better. Evolve is addicting and insanely fun and despite a
few repetitive annoyances, the game is an overall great package.
8 out of 10
Great. This is a game
definitely worth your time. A game that is extremely fun and does a
good job of being fresh and inventive. This game may have only a few
issues that keep it from being something truly special.
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