Zetta, Our resident gaming critic is here with another review. We recently installed Evolve on our PC's and we thought it was a good idea to have him have a go at it. It proved quite the multiplayer experience and isn't that what Outpost is all about ?
Hunting games have always been a rather obscure genre of gaming often confined to the realms of the East. Titles such as Capcom's Monster Hunter and Tecmo Koei's Toukiden have garnered a small cult following in the West, but they've remained relatively unexplored by western developers as a genre. Cue 2011 and the announcement of a hunting game by former Left4Dead developer Turtle Rock Studios that would experiment with the idea of asymmetric gameplay. Something this innovative peaked our interest as it had never been done before and probably won't be done again anytime soon. Once we had our copies of Evolve ready, we got our best hunting party together at Outpost Ghent and decided take our expedition to the next level. Would we have a good time hunting the greatest prey of all time?
As far as concept is concerned, it's hard to argue with the idea behind Evolve. Four players form a hunting party that has to work together to take down a very powerful fifth player in guise of a monster. The fifth player would have to use cunning in order to elude his hunters, grow stronger and then destroy them while the hunters would need to synergize their teamwork and abilities in order to stand a chance against the monster. The differing roles between the sides and the strategies one would have to employ to play effectively are completely different and show an interesting depth in game design that we don't often see in this industry. Considering how often we see rehashed first person shooters, this emphasis on asymmetric gameplay is a breath of fresh air that the genre was sorely lacking over the years.
Playing as the hunters has its own challenges and rewards as each hunter is different and requires a different style. You could make a comparison here to the classes in games like Team Fortress 2 and Borderlands, but with more of an emphasis on teamwork. In those games, a sufficiently skilled player is capable of carrying his team or steamrolling through the game with relative ease. Evolve's individual hunters can only go so far on their own against their prey and clever usage of skills will make life for easier fir everyone. You could go in with four players guns blazing and hope that the creature will get gunned down, or you could lure it into a trap, spring a cage around it, pepper it with tranquilizing darts and fire at a weakened monster while being constantly healed by your medic. I'm sure you can already tell which approach will yield the best results. Naturally, the built-in tools such as voice chat help a lot to coordinate the carnage, but we found that the best result came from being in the same room and shouting instructions at each other. Luckily, Outpost provided the needed environment for us.
The monster comes with its own style of play as it embodies the titular evolving mechanic. At the outset, the monster is weak and, while it is not defenceless, it is easy prey against hunters who know what they're doing. Rushing the hunters at the start is a bad idea if you want to survive. The trick is using the luscious and colourful environment to your advantage as you hide from the hunters and do some hunting of your own in order to become stronger. As you reach stage 2 and stage 3, you can start taking on the hunters on your own as the tides of power shift in your favour. You'll naturally still need to know what you're doing as even a stage 3 monster can expect a nasty surprise from a well-prepared team of hunters. Both sides should never underestimate their prey.
As Evolve is primarily multiplayer-focused (though it does have the option for single player against the AI), it lacks the same narrative feel that games with a dedicated story mode would have. Despite this, Turtle Rock has infused a non-linear narrative in the game by way of the characters. Each character has a unique back story, history and reasons for hunting monsters on the planet Shear which you'll hear during the pre-hunt cutscenes and sometimes in-game. Therefore the more you play matches with each hunter, the more you'll get to know them as characters which is a nice touch.
Considering there's no story mode, progression needs to happen in alternative ways. As fitting for a multiplayer-focused game, you gain points, badges and experience for your actions in battle which unlock in-game content. As you play each of the four classes, assault, trapper, support and medic, you'll gain character mastery points which increase the damage you can deal with weapons and improve your abilities. If you master a certain character within a class to a certain extent, you'll unlock the next character in that class. Each class has two unlockable characters, except the trapper who has three. Next to character mastery, you also have player progression which is linked to your overall player performance. This unlocks certain perks that improve your general performance when equipped. Monsters are governed by a similar system which means those players aren't forced into using hunters in order to progress.
Now on the surface, this system seems like a good idea as it rewards players with boosts and unlockables for playing, but it is actually a double-edged sword. When a new player starts up the game, they are severely limited in options with only four hunters playable and some maps and monsters locked until they've sunk more hours into the game. New players hoping to get their money's worth from the first play session will be disappointed by this, though they'll quickly understand that playing the game is rewarded with new content. Still, we wouldn't be surprised if this was off-putting to new players who just want a couple of matches with everyone unlocked with their friends without having to go to the trouble of unlocking everything. This is solved slightly by the inclusion of solo mode which allows players to use a lot of the unlockable content against bots, but not to the extent that it would pacify every player with the above complaint.
Next to the main Hunt mode, Evolve boasts a number of alternative gameplay modes with maps geared towards more traditional competitive play. Defend mode is, as the name implies, a game mode in which the hunters defend generators from monster attacks. Nest mode allows the monster to hatch an AI monster to help it from eggs. The monster has to defend these eggs against the hunters who aim to destroy them all or kill the monster. Rescue mode has the hunters locate and evacuate survivors using a dropship as the monster tries to eat them. Finally evacuation mode combines all of the above in a five match game with various bonuses given to either the hunters or the monster depending on performance. These modes give the game some nice variety as there's only so many times you can hunt a monster without getting bored. We also liked how the abilities of the hunters gained new strategic value during these matches such as the medics being able to revive survivors in rescue.
As far as graphics are concerned, Evolve boasts crisp effects and animations which really sell us on the notion that there's a big hulking critter stalking about in need of some bullets to the face. The sound design, which include audio effects such as the hunters getting nervous and heavy footsteps for monsters like the Goliath, add to the sense of unease we had while tracking a monster. This is further heightened due to the environment that allows clever monsters to elude their hunters by hiding in plain sight and using the territory to their advantage. Our monster player was able to sneak around us several times by letting us run past him as he hid in the background. This shows the enormous thought and effort placed in the visual design of the game.
At the end of the day, Evolve is fun. There's no two ways about this. It combines mechanics, visuals and sound design in order to create a thrilling cat-and-mouse affair that we really enjoyed. The asymmetrical gameplay was a bold choice to make, but it gives the monsters the ability to become the deadliest prey in ways that an AI just wouldn't be able to replicate. Taking turns being the monster is fun and bringing five friends together for a hunting party is one of those experiences you just don't forget. We had a great time with our group sitting in a PC circle at Outpost shouting compliments, advice and tactical plans and we believe this is easily the best way to play this game. If any of what you just read sounds like it would be an interesting experience, get your friends together and join the hunt! You won't be disappointed.
Oh by the way we have the Evolve Hunting Party in Outpost Antwerp tomorrow! You can play the game for free from 16:00 onwards. See you there!
