When I first heard of Turtle Rock Studios next game Evolve, I admit, I was hyped. These are the guys that had previously brought me shooters with hours and hours worth of entertainment. To date Steam shows that Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are my most played games of all time (it didn’t even bestow this honor upon Skyrim, which I have 200 hours logged!) And yes, I felt Left 4 Dead engaged me in a way first person shooters never did in the past, with level design and a game AI that kept you guessing, well designed characters with personalities that made them pop, and a story told effectively solely through player interaction with the world.
So how could I not get excited when hearing about the premise of Evolve? The game would feature 4 player co-operative gameplay reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, but also expanding upon other ideas the developers had played with in the past such as letting players control enemy mobs. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be the Xenoform players had to hunt, trying to out-think them, out-fight them and out-evolve them? I was sold. It sounded fresh and original and, much like Left 4 Dead, a new approach to a packed genre.
Then we start to get the worrying reports that this is a game “built from the ground up to support DLC.” But I held fast, wanting to give Evolve the chance to prove it was a title that could stand up on its own. So I downloaded the retail copy of Evolve to my Playstation 4, patched it up, and got to playing.
When you hit start you’re instantly you’re slammed with a video that “advertises” each class of character the player can be as they do battle with the fearsome monster called the Goliath. The video is loud, colorful, there’s exciting gun play as hunters zip about an alien jungle. And that’s all well and good, but there’s only one problem, it reeks a bit of “Call of Duty Mountain Dew infused advertisement” and not so much “Charming introduction to the game world, characters, and unique beasts you’ll encounter in the game.”
While this may be an odd way to start a review, I think it perfectly characterizes where Evolve first goes wrong. Instead of challenging old FPS conventions, it just wants to join the lot of other team shooters out there, it doesn’t mind being just another Team Fortress 2 clone with maybe some hints of Titanfall. It’s not looking to change the formula, it’s just looking to be part of the formula.
Right away Evolve dumps you into the role of the default monster, the Goliath. it looks great, but I don’t get the sense I’m some hulking, bestial animal at the top of the food chain to be feared. In fact, I couldn’t help but notice the Goliath’s gameplay felt very much like an Assassin from the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which naturally feels like Batman from the Arkham franchise, who also feels like Talion from Shadows of Mordor, which is pretty similar to Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot. The Goliath doesn’t feel like anything new, it just feels like a copy and paste template of something games have been ripping off from one another for over a half decade now.
Before I popped in Evolve I kind of hoped there would be some kind of solo play or tutorial mode, so I could get my feet wet before diving into the deep end. Now I almost wish the opposite, that I was able to get an immediate trial by fire. Why? Because it has one of the most asinine “progression” systems I have ever seen in video games, locking every single thing behind a rough tutorial you MUST play before you are allowed to proceed. It’s very “hand holdy”, a bit condescending, and I think rife with faulty logic in how to “train” players to the game. If multiplayer has taught me anything, it’s that no amount of depth to the tutorial is going to prepare you for how the live game is played against other thinking, acting opponents.
Even more troubling is once you get past all that, you’re still locked out of a good deal of content if you didn’t also pre order the title. Of the three monsters and 12 hunters, you can only play one and four respectively. The system of grinding to unlock other characters would make even a Korean MMO blush. It’s a move that, quite frankly, artificially extends the game’s lifespan so you don’t get an immediate sense of how lacking it is, while also punishing players who didn’t pay even more money on top of the game’s already hefty price tag.
I suppose progression works in the “carrot – stick” sense of many MMOs. I did want to keep playing a class and rounding her out to unlock the next class, then finish up that class to -finally- get the character and class I actually want to play, but this also caused Evolve to wear out its welcome with me after just a few extended play sessions.
As for matches. Evolve encourages the idea of the hunt being as exciting as the battle. However when it comes to how the gameplay model actually works, I suppose the closest parallel is Starcraft, in that the idea gets to be “horde resources as soon as possible” or “bum-rush the enemy as soon as possible.” See, monsters at level 1 can be trashed by hunters quite easily, while a monster at level 3 is close to invincible. It behooves hunters to just jet to the monster, surround and overwhelm it, which is entirely possible with certain team synergies, killing the beast before it ever had a fighting chance. Alternatively if the monster is lucky enough to spawn on a map with a food rich ecosystem, they can quickly out-evolve the hunters and win the game.
It feels like to really make this be more of the cat and mouse game they wanted, both hunters and monsters would need more to do, encouraging hunters to be a bit more forward thinking in their strategies, taking advantage of traps and terrain, perhaps a few more ways to try and track the monster. While the monster needs more ways to try and throw the player, perhaps the ability to spawn minions (one monster sort of has this ability), or lay traps of their own. For now it’s just “Hunters look at bird, Hunters look at tracks. Monster eat.” Yes there are other game modes but they barely go touched, with one tower defense mode, and most others being a race for certain resources (with names like ‘survivors’ or ‘monster eggs’), none really prove as exciting as Hunt.
While the characters may be uninspired, feeling a bit like Z-list GI Joe, or Chinese factory rip-off Team Fortress 2, their actual abilities did tend to be pretty varied and attempted things I haven’t necessarily seen before. Such as Caira’s healing grenades, or the robot Bucket who uses his head as an unmanned drone. Their powers and the individual perks players can choose also bring to the table the questions of best team synergies to use. A team of Maggie with her pet bloodhound… er, trapjaw Daisy paired with Caira’s acceleration field means you can track down your prize before the poor thing gets a chance to evolve to level 2. Or try Cabot’s damage amplifier and Parnell’s super soldier, to tear up the monster’s health.
The monsters also come in very different flavors. While the default Goliath seems to take his cue from most classic towering monstrosities like Godzilla with the ability to lift rocks and breath fire, Kraken hearkens back to some good ol’ Cthulhu mythos becoming darkness incarnate as it swings around water globules and lightning bolts, while the Wraith is some kind of psycho knife assassin with the ability to go invisible, leave dummy targets and blade dance the hunters to shreds.
Yes, the powers are varied and no two abilities feel the same, even similar-ish powers are tweaked between characters (Val’s sniper gun is loud and slow, but Lazarus’ can leave multiple silent shots), but the sad truth is you’ll probably get tired of seeing them/using them/having them used on you in a pretty short amount of time. Once more not helping Turtle Rock’s case is that “progression” system, because by the time you’ve unlocked a new character you’re so sick of the one you had to play just before it that you’ll be happy to never see them again. Especially since part of that progression encourages you to use a handful of abilities in a very specific way, which means spamming repeatedly until “man orbital barrage is awesome” turns into “I sure am sick of seeing orbital barrage.”
Zoe was perhaps the darling of Left 4 Dead, as horror movie geek and den mother, and her crush on the nervous Louis was cute. These are things that slowly unfolded in the game as you played it, with a system that was smart about advancing the characters even if you were just reloading the same four stages over and over. Evolve on the other hand has all its pre-recorded dialogue, and that’s it, once you’ve heard two characters banter, you’ve heard all of their banter for the entire game. No music aside from a few generic military drum beats (if you’re not sick of my Left 4 Dead references yet, I’d like to remind you the special infected had very striking music cues). There’s no real “flavor” to the world, even in the level design, your choices vary from “muddy, murky jungle” to “muddy, murky industrial facility in a jungle” to “mud huts in muddy, murky jungle.” Remember, this is sci-fi where you’re exploring an entire planet, battles could have taken place in dangerous frozen wastelands, or deep beneath the sea in highly advanced research labs. Nope, muddy jungle.
If I only put down 20 bucks I may not mind that each match is just a mindless race to the finish. I might not mind that I’m paying about 40 bucks more for the content to get more stuff. But I do mind that this was marked at the same price as other, fuller multiplayer experiences. This is also sadly an ever increasing trend in video games, with Titanfall and Destiny reeking of the same feeling of “getting a little for a lot, then being expected to pay a lot more.”
So this is the part of the review where we score it. When I go about my scores, technical ability is a large factor, and Evolve is technically sound. It had a relatively smooth server launch, I rarely ran into glitches (they exist, but they’re rare), and everything functions as intended. It looks good, and each class and monster feels different, even if the overall game is uninspired. However the entire premise of building around DLC bugs me a great deal, sure Turtle Rock and Take Two spun it like it’s a good thing, and it probably is for them if they’re lining their pockets, but it’s punishing to the consumer. Their pricing is frankly absurd as well, asking for a full 60 price tag for the game, and some of the most costly cosmetic packs I’ve seen. I dread seeing the cost of the first “real” DLC. I don’t like feeling as though I’m being price gouged when I’m just trying to have fun, and Evolve reeks of wanting to wring your wallet, for that reason paired with its limited replayability I’ve given this game a 2, and recommend you don’t bother.
