Review: Evolve (PS4)

Welcome to the planet Shear. It's a roughly Earth-sized world containing a wide variety of flora and fauna, all of it inimical to human life. It's like Australia stretched out over an entire globe. Everything is either going to kill you deliberately or circumstantially.

So what could possibly be worth coming to such a choice hellhole of the Universe? Simple. Big game hunting. And we do mean BIG game.

The biggest creatures are taller than two story buildings, have the ability to undergo rapid metamorphosis to obtain new and terrifying abilities, and are probably equal to the average human in intelligence. What have you got? Three buddies and some big damned guns. It might almost be an even match. Sure, you can tell yourself that you're just here to save the dumbass colonists who have suddenly found themselves as appetizers for alien megafauna. You can nod and smile when you're reminded that you're supposed to be assisting an evacuation of the planet. But let's face it: you want the gnarly trophy to mount on your wall.

Evolve takes the idea of the co-operative shooter and adds a fifth wheel in the form of the giant monsters. As the hunters, the four roles are vitally important. It's theoretically possible for the team to almost wipe and still win, but your opponent has got to have screwed up by the numbers for that to happen. So, going lone wolf is not the ideal method of play. Coordination and teamwork are the linchpin of winning the matchup, no matter what the scenario. As the monster, brute strength and ugliness are not enough. Building your strength by munching on the local wildlife is important, but there are some creatures bigger and meaner than even you, so you have to choose your feedings carefully, and avoid the hunters until you're ready to put the hurt on them. It's a dynamic that can be fraught with tension or infuriating with imbalance.

The game makes excellent use of the Cryengine to bring Shear and its denizens to life. There are loads of little details all over the game, from the various textures of buildings and equipment to the different sorts of skin on the animals. Some might argue that it gets a little old wandering around a planet full of box canyons with strategically placed rock formations all over the place, but as a means of focusing the action, it works pretty well. While I might have liked more sloping surfaces and domes to perch on, it's a pettifogging little complaint. There's plenty of blood, fire, thunder, and explosions to cause visual diabetes. The various hunters are visually distinctive without seeming like they don't fit in the world or don't somehow match the general role they they're expected to fill. Meanwhile, the giant monsters are highly detailed in all three stages of their life cycle and convey a proper feeling of ″realistic aliens″ when you look at them.

More than any other game in recent memory, sound is vitally important in Evolve. The sound of certain animals clueing you into the approach of the monster, the voices of your teammates as they bring out certain weapons or plead for your assistance. The game demands a high degree of situational awareness and sound is sometimes the only thing between you and defeat. Outside of its utility, the game makes very good use of sound effects to help immerse players in the environment. Weapon effects are sharp, environmental sounds are properly employed, different creatures sound unique. If there's any shortcoming, it's the soundtrack, which seems kind of sparse. Admittedly, when you're stalking your prey, a soundtrack is probably the last thing you want intruding on your consciousness, particularly when you're listening for startled birds or a hunter taking long ranged potshots at you. Meanwhile, the voice acting is quite well done. There's not a lot in the way of big dramatic speeches or anything like that, but listening to the by-play of hunters as they're moving through the zone hints at a much bigger galaxy than just Shear.

When it comes to gameplay, you as a player have several options, both in terms of what you're playing as and the scenarios you're playing. There aren't a lot of those scenarios, but there are enough to keep things interesting, and it's worth your time to play through all of them.

Skirmish mode is just that, one map, one match, quick playing. If you're mediocre, or if you happen to be playing multiplayer with a bunch of very good players all around, you can finish almost any map in about 15 minutes. If you're really good, or really bad, it can be over in less than two. For the solo player, there are bots to fill in the missing players, and they're decent enough. The closest thing that Evolve comes to a campaign is Evacuation. Five rounds, with players choosing a side and playing different maps under different scenarios. Each victory or failure grants an advantage or a handicap, respectively, as you go into the next map.

The game's primary focus is online multiplayer. And, as with games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, you're going to be spending a lot of time unlocking upgrades. More importantly, and perhaps a little obtusely, you're also going to be spending time unlocking the different hunters in each class and the different monsters.

The as-yet-unreleased Season Pass for PS4 promises to add new hunters and new skins for the existing monsters, which means more unlocking will likely be needed. As with other shooters using this sort of ″RPG lite″ progression, players who haven't unlocked certain hunters or monsters very much will be at a disadvantage compared to other players. The matching system tries to get people of roughly equivalent unlock status and character progression level grouped together, but it seems a little off. So far, I haven't run across any particularly obnoxious players, but the possibility is always there. From one player to another, do yourself a favor and unlock everything you can through Skirmish or Evacuation at least a little bit to give yourself some flexibility when going up against real people. If nothing else, it'll prove to people you can, in fact, play your class.

There's a lot of good solid shooter gaming to be found in Evolve. Rather than the large team battles more military-oriented shooters provide, it's a more intimate experience in the respect that you only have a few people to work with and one who's out to stomp you all. While the unlock system is slightly annoying, the basic premise is definitely one that can keep you busy for a long time, either with friends or with complete strangers. Go get your hunting buddies together. Remember, there's no bag limit on fun.

- Axel Cushing

The Good:
- Excellent use of the Cryengine
- Plenty of options to suit personal gameplay style
- Fast and furious matches

The Bad:
- Slight quibbles with map design
- Unlocking is a chore
- Matching system can lead to wildly imbalanced gameplay