Evolve – Thoughts on the Big Alpha

I spent some time over this weekend playing the Evolve Big Alpha. I’m not sure how many hours (Steam has made that so simple…) I spent playing, but I certainly have quite a few opinions about that time. It’s a cool concept and visually awesome, but it just didn’t resonate with me. Maybe it’s that I was playing on Xbox, or maybe it’s still just too PvP for my tastes. Whatever the particular reason, it’s the kind of game that sounds great and looks great and is ultimately just not for me.

Like I said, Evolve looks great. This thing has a perfect monster movie atmosphere to it. It’s dark, dirty, and full of tense ambiance. As a hunter I found myself constantly feeling wary and watching for movement in the distance as my team followed the tracks of the monster or as birds are roused in the distance. As a monster, it was even more so as I hunted prey to gain strength while trying to keep distance from the pesky players until I could reach phase 3. The jungle, the wildlife, the sounds all scream summer blockbuster monster movie.

I’m also a fan of the idea of asymmetric games like Evolve. If you’re not familiar, it’s a 5-player game where 4 choose a unique class and work cooperatively to hunt and take down the 5th player who controls a powerful monster. So it’s part co-op, part PvP, and entirely chaotic. It’s certainly not the first entry into the genre and will definitely not be the last. There’s just something terribly appealing about having the chance to actually play the boss and to thwart a set of adventuring players. It’s also rewarding to know that the monster you and your team are fighting isn’t just an AI controlled brute with patterns that can be memorized and dealt with.

I feel like I should really be able to sink my teeth into Evolve and yet it just wasn’t pushing that kaiju button for me. Part of it could have easily been that I was playing it on Xbox. Even though I’m still playing Destiny, I’m just not a big fan of FPS using a controller. (PC master race? Yep.) Part of it was certainly that the load times were unbearably long. A good part of it was that even with all of the ambiance, I still couldn’t shake that core feeling about PvP that just won’t let me enjoy it.

I realize this was an alpha (which is a weird thing to mass test, but okay) and was just the core of the game, but it did leave me feeling like there are some things that could be included to smooth the game and make it more enjoyable for people like myself. The big one being a practice mode with an optional tutorial for each class. I’m really hoping that makes it into the final game because the quick into video the first time I got a new class and the onscreen popup tips as I’m trying to not get turned into a smear weren’t really doing it for me. I’d really love to get a step by step on each of the powers and have the option to play solo in a game populated by bots to get the hang of things before I go embarrass myself with live players. As the monster, it would be really nice to just get an arrow when I start that tells me which way to start running instead of just a notice to run. My first attempt at being the monster was cut incredibly short because I ran into the industrial area and only figured that out as the hunters dropped on top of me, put up an inescapable barrier, and tore me a new one.

It’s still a long way until the February 10th release date for Evolve and there’s a very good chance that things are going to change. I’m also not the biggest fan of PvP games even though the idea of these asymmetrically matched games is really cool. I’d probably recommend Evolve for people who really dig class based PvP games and enjoy filling a specific role. The matchmaking allows you to set a hierarchical preference for matchmaking so that you’re probably going to end with at least your second choice on any given game. Unfortunately, if your tastes in games are similar to mine, this is probably going to be one you’ll want to pass on.