Turtle Rock Studios and 2K released Evolve back in February. The 4 vs. 1 gameplay promised to keep the adrenaline flowing along, whether you were on the 4 player hunter side or playing as the monster. Given the studios pedigree with the two fantastic Left for Dead games along with my time in the Alpha and Beta releases I couldn’t wait to pick this game up!
Darwin
If you ever played the Left for Dead series, you probably played it in co-op mode at some point in time with friends either on the same couch or online. Like me you probably dreaded hearing the sound of sobbing produced by a witch tucked away somewhere. If you were lucky you could sneak by but one little dumb ass zombie could turn that little game of “sneak past the witch” into “Holy Shit! She is kicking our asses! Where did all these other zombies come from!? Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Do you remember that adrenaline rush as she started screaming and coming after you? Do remember that feeling of complete badassedness when you defeated her? For me that is what Evolve promised to be...just the whole damn time!
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Evolve takes place on an alien planet where the monsters thrive and are destroying the human colonies set up there. Along come the best of the interplanetary badass bounty hunters contacted to clean things up. That is pretty much the whole story. Then again this game really doesn’t need a strong story all it needs is a premise but Turtle Rock to take that premise and do one better. Besides the 4 on 1 gameplay there are plenty of hostile creatures and plants that are more than willing to inflict pain and suffering regardless of which side you are on. You have to constantly be on your toes and know when to pick a fight and when to run away. For me this just added another level of intensity and I loved it!
Prehistoric ooze
I will admit I didn’t get a lot of time in with the Alpha or the Beta as it took forever to find a match. The Alpha I completed two matches in two hours. The matches only lasted about 5 minutes each so you can guess how long I waited in the matchmaking lobby. I shrugged it off as it was an Alpha release and those two matches were glorious! The Beta was a bit better, with waiting times improved but still an average of 15 to 20 minutes to get into a game. In the Beta I managed to try all the classes and even won as the Goliath! That beating the witch feeling from L4D was definitely there. I knew I was going to love this game!
My gameplay style favors more of a tank class. Run straight ahead and blow the crap out of everything until I die is pretty much my goto strategy. I know it’s not a good strategy but bad habits are really hard to break. If, like me you have a favorite class or gameplay style, Evolve allows you to rank their favorite classes from 1 to 5. You can choose from the monster, the Heavy, Medic, Trapper or Support. You can also constantly change those around. Playing in single player mode allows you the ability to hop between the hunter classes so you can play all four. When playing in multiplayer, Evolve uses your ranking in matchmaking to find games that you can play your favorite classes in. In theory this sounds pretty awesome and would allow a single player complete control while reducing wait time in multiplayer. Features like this just amped my anticipation level to 11!
Triassic Era
I threw my money down on a pre-order and downloaded the companion match 3 mobile game! I was all in! Unfortunately, due to prior commitments I wasn’t going to get a chance to play Evolve until the Friday after it released. I was a little bummed out by that but sometimes family comes first right?! I spent most of Friday evening in single player getting used to controls and gameplay. Single player has a neat premise where there are 5 maps that you have to either beat as the hunters or the monster. The maps and objectives are never in quite the same order and you get a choice in a couple stages to make things even more random. If you win the stage then your team gets a bit of a bonus on the next one. To help even things out the opposing team gets a buff in some form or fashion. This is where I hit my first disappointment. I lost every fricking match all night long, hunter or monster it didn’t matter. If I was the hunters the Goliath would be all the way across the map by the time you parachuted in and at level 2 before I even saw it. As the monster I could get about 50 yards away before turning around and seeing the outline of four hunters and a trapjaw tracking me. I jumped, I climbed, I snuck around but it did no good. As the monster you need to hunt and kill the alien prey to “Evolve”. Your best chance of survival is to get to the third and final stage of evolution. At that point you are pretty badass and damn near invincible. I know this not because I ever made it to stage 3, but I had to fight a shit ton of monsters who were. This wasn’t fun, but I persevered. I figured if I kept at it and levelled my hunters up I might stand a chance.
Jurassic Era
I kept at it that weekend but playing as different classes hurt me as I couldn’t get enough points in one to level them up. I went back to my goto strategy and focused on the Heavy. I hoped that by levelling him up and unlocking higher level characters I might stand a chance. So I kept running and gunning! When I got tired of getting my ass handed to me by the monster I played as the monster to level him up. That was until I got tired of getting my ass handed to me by the hunters. When I got tired of that circle of pain and frustration I went back and played the tutorial as a different class. At least that way I was pretty much guaranteed a win. After a couple hours of constantly losing I needed a break and walked away very frustrated.
Saturday night I thought I would try multiplayer out. Unfortunately I came away severly disappointed again. Wait times to even get into a game ranged anywhere from 10-15 minutes. That time was from when I initiated the matchmaking to when my character landed on the ground. Unfortunately my first game was a shellacking. I was a level 3, my teammates ranged from a level 12 to 20. The monster was a level 40 Wraith. We were annihilated in the span of around 3 minutes. When you get knocked down either the medic or the trapjaw (if the trapper picked that character) can heal you. If you die there is a wait time of around a minute to 90 seconds where your character will parachute back into the fray. This also allows for new players to connect to a game in progress if someone drops out. We never saw that actually happen during these matches as they were over too quick.
Cretaceous Period
I noted previously that the Goliath is somewhat slow and lumbering. The other monster classes are most definitely not. The Wraith can teleport short distances and if the team is within that distance it can basically pinball from one hunter to another before you can even blink. The Kraken can fly around pretty quickly and can defend and attack with electricity which apparently does way more damage than any bullet I hit it with. Either way both are far superior to the Goliath. Sadly, after a couple rounds of utter multiplayer humiliation, Evolve decided to make me the monster. I would have chosen the Wraith or Kraken but they are unlockable monsters like the different hunters. You have to level up to play as them. Needless to say I hadn’t yet and only had the Goliath to choose from. I headed for the water as that hides footprints and jumped and climbed to get away. While I was devouring my first kill the hunters were on me. Roughly 30 seconds after that I was dead. Apparently Evolve decided I needed a couple more chances as it made me the monster two more times which ended in pretty much the same way. The only good news out of this was that if you stay within the same group at least its only about 2-3 minutes between matches. However, as soon as you leave in frustration and try and find another match, like I did, it goes back to the 10-15 minute range. I shut it down after about 5 minutes of waiting. It wasn’t worth it.
Cataclysmic Event
Mrs-Soup and I love our co-op games and, given Turtle Rocks history, I assumed Evolve would have couch co-op as well. My bad. If there was ever a game that cried out for teamwork from people within the same room it’s Evolve. Playing in single player the hunters AI, when playing as a hunter, is roughly equivalent to around an 80IQ. They can’t find crap, the medic heals everyone but you, if it heals anyone at all, the trapper never traps a damn thing and support just yells out hillbilly catch phrases. I don’t know if they ever did any damage to the monster as it focused on me the entire time. When you are the monster their IQ and ability to hit their mark magically jumps around 40 points. Their teamwork becomes stellar all of a sudden. There has got to be some kind of happy medium here but Turtle Rock didn’t find it. Along with no co-op there isn’t even a way for two people to play against each other! That would have been awesome! Like the rest of this game, there was a lot of potential for awesome that just didn’t show up.
Devolve
I was so pumped about Evolve. I had great times with the Left for Dead series, in the games I played in Alpha and Beta of Evolve I had a blast but for the full release it was nothing but frustration and disappointment time after time. I tried to go back to it but as the time went by my characters were further and further behind and multiplayer matchmaking would put me with guys 3 to 4 times higher than me. I was the weak link and in this game, if you want to win, you can’t have a weak link. People would see my level and either drop out or salivate if they were the monster. Like any other multiplayer game if you try to get into this game now you will get crushed. It’s too late and the single player isn’t strong enough to even recommend this for a Price Drop or Rental. It breaks my heart but from my experience with Evolve I have to give this one a Skip. Evolve could have been so good but just wasn’t.
