Evolve is a game I have been aware of for a long time, and have been mildly excited for.  Being developed by Turtle Rock, the developers behind the amazing Left 4 Dead franchise, I definitely had confidence that the game would be good.  The idea of four player-controlled hunters hunting down one giant player-controlled monster seemed like an interesting and exciting gameplay scenario that would bring about many fun experiences with my friends.  I didn’t expect to get completely engulfed in the game or anything; I just wanted something to hold me over until Borderlands: The Handsome Collection.  So did Evolve meet it’s expectations, or is it another early-year AAA dud?

Evolve follows a group of futuristic hunters sent to the planet Shear to evacuate the civilians being attacked by mysterious monsters that have begun to destroy the colonies. The game features of unique cast of colorful hunters you can play as ranging from former war veterans to mad scientists to murderous sociopaths.  Their personalities are greatly portrayed through dialogue with fellow hunters, as well as in the weaponry the choose to use.  Other than that, story-wise, Evolve is mostly barren.  You can tell that there is a lot of lore behind the game by the way the characters talk about their backgrounds and home colonies, however the game never really gives you much to go on past little conversations characters have during gameplay.  There is no single-player campaign to set-up any sort of narrative, no opening cutscene to explain anything, not even a manual in the game’s case explaining the game’s plot.  You’re just thrown into the game and told “hunt the monster!” or “kill the hunters!”  I had to go to the game’s wikipedia page just to find out the planet’s name.  It is clear that the game is not trying to give a story but rather a gameplay experience, so how is that gameplay experience?

In Evolve, there are two very different and unique options for how you want to play the game: you can either play as one of the four hunters, or as the monster.  For the hunters, each team consisted of four different classes with varying roles you could play as: the assault, the medic, the support, and the trapper.  Each class consisted of three different characters who had different abilities for different styles of gameplay.  The assault class was tasked with dealing the most damage to the monster with big and explosive weaponry, the medic class was tasked with healing other characters and reviving, the support class was tasked with protecting other hunters and tracking the monster, and the trapper was tasked with trapping the monster with a giant deployable dome.  As a monster, you can choose between three different monsters with differing abilities and gameplay styles.  During my time playing the game, I mostly played as a hunter because I felt that playing as the monster was significantly harder, and that the game seemed to be against the monster making it feel almost unfair.  As far as balancing goes, there are definitely characters that are better than others, making choices for who you’re going to play as come down to stats rather than style.  For example, one of the assault characters, Hyde, has flamethrower and a gatling gun, which are both only effective at short ranges.  All of the monsters have some sort of ranged attack, making which leaves Hyde unable to do any real damage and overall makes him completely useless as a character.  This is a shame, considering Hyde’s flamethrower is extremely fun to use, but it just isn’t good, so I rarely use it.

Regardless of small balancing issues, once you unlock the good characters Evolve is a pretty fun game to pick-up and play with friends.  It’s a game I’d recommend buying only if you have other friends who have it or if it’s at a major discount on a steam sale.  Playing this game alone is not nearly as fun as playing with friends, since most people you play with in matchmaking don’t talk and strategizing with your team is half of the fun of the game.  Good times are definitely to be had with this game, but only if you have the right people alongside you.  The game can definitely be frustrating with some minor glitches and often clunky jetpack controls, but these are minute enough to overlook.  It’s not going to be winning any awards for “Game of the Year,” but it won’t be recognized as “Worst Game of the Year” either.