Evolve
Evolve is a cooperative based shooter developed by Turtle Rock Studios, best known for Title Left 4 Dead, a cooperative based shooter in the same vain, this time based around giant monsters that 'Evolve' like Pokemon, you level up by eating wildlife in the surrounding habitat whilst being pursued by a group of 4 hunters.
These hunters come in 4 different classes, all based around different skill sets.
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| Markov. |
Resident meat head Markov the over sized Russian sounding Assault class
Hobo chain smoker Hank in the role of moral Support with guns,
Super moaner Val the Medic and Griffin the griffin, I mean Trapper.
First up this beta is free to anyone that has an Xbox Live Gold account, which I'm going to assume is everyone these days? Secondly and most importantly it's an arse hole to find, not plastered on the home screen I had to Bing search the beast, later finding the 20GB kraken of a download, I'll play Path of Exile while I wait.
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| Hank. |
I enter the beta pretty excited by the idea of giant monsters, hello giant monster foot!
Cue amazing intro video that I'm going to find and link right here as people need to see the awesomeness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Uhh8SdvOw
As the game starts it shows me a break down of the Goliath class, explaining about how the moves work with a cute little tutorial video, I would find that video but I'm not that skilled at linking in pages.
Certain Hot keys are linked to certain moves, these main keys are X, Y, Lb and Rb, images are also shown next to the moves located at the top of the screen
The game is played in a 3rd person view when your the Goliath as you can hurl giant rocks at your enemies as well as breath fire over a large area of the map hurting more than one enemy in the process.
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| Grifiin. |
The remaining buttons are left to your core move set, A for a long or short monster leap, B for monster sneak because apparently monsters sneak, Rt for monster whack and Lt for monster climb.
Rs also a key button used to sniff out those crafty animals you rely on so heavily to evolve, highlighting the amount and whereabouts of the little creature, similar to Dragon Age and the Witcher series.
Eating wildlife is key to evolving your level 1 Goliath to a level 3 beast and winning the match, the higher your level the more powerful your monster, level 3 kitted out with a mammoth amount of health and armor making you that much harder to kill.
Hitting Lt and Rt at the same time when you've eaten enough food starts the evolution process, My Goliath Buffing up and flexing his muscles for a monster muscles weekly photo shoot.
Now a little details on the wonderful classes, each one having certain strengths and weaknesses.
Hunter - Damages Monster.
Medic- Heals Hunter.
Support - Buffs Hunter.
Trapper - Traps Monster.
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| Val. |
This is where the cooperative part of the game kicks in, if you get stuck with the idiots I did the match will end in two minutes flat, you'll be taunted by a child in the lobby telling you to rage quit because you lost.
Good to see this aspect of douche baggery is still going strong in the internet space
The class it throws me into this time is the Assault class.
The same hot keys apply this time to the character but instead of being at the top of the screen its in the right hand corner, this being down to the fact your now playing in a first person perspective
Lt aiming my meat head weaponry, Rt shooting said weaponry X reloading my weapon and a lot of the manoeuvring solely left down to tapping, double tapping and holding the A button in certain directions.
I decide now it's go time, I boot up solo mode to get a feel for the controls, Instead I get a video of a small ship flying of a bigger ship which is heading in the direction of a creepy looking planet, I wonder if monster's inhabit the surface?
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| Stop Kraken them bad jokes. |
Word on the street is were dealing with more than ordinary wildlife, This made clear to me by a robot I thought was called 'fuck it', turns out he's names Bucket.
It's then made clear to me who each character is and what hobbies they most enjoy, mostly killing giant monsters. A quick decision is then made to not allow me to play the single player mode and then continually loops the character introduction video, Online it is.
Cool feature walks up to me and says,
'Hey Caleb, sick of playing multiple roles when you just want to focus your grind on the meat head assault class? No worries, now you can prioritise your match matching. Choose your preferred class and we'll try to match you in order of preference with this handy 1-5 rating system, monster included.'
Thanks cool feature, that's a really cool feature.
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| Bread lover, Wholewheat01. |
Meat head it is!
Round 1 - Skirmish
I stand around not moving, the monster on the other hand makes an obvious approach thanks to the badly named 'scare birds'
10 seconds later my meat head is turned into a bot as I'm writing this.
10 seconds later later and I'm crushed by a giant monster.
10 seconds later later later the match is over. Good team work guys!
Its made apparent to me that this game really does rely heavily on cooperative team play and communication, each class complimenting each other in different ways.
Hello trash talking 13 year old on the other side of the microphone, how I've missed you ever so
I name of shame this dick, Wholewheat01. what a stupid fucking name, looks like we have a bread loving Goliath on the other team.
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| Hamper full of bread rolls. |
Round 2 - Bread loving Goliath edition.
He kills the Medic and Support class then scampers off with a hamper full of hot bread rolls, 2 minutes later more support drops in, If your whole team doesn't die, a new bunch of people drop in to the map again via little ship, stretching the match even further, if you all fall to pieces like my first attempt its over just as quick as it started. He makes one more quick assault with a baguette then flees.
His tactic seems to be seems to be bludgeon Medic with stale Tiger loaf, attempt rest of team relying on lack of communication to be there failure, no medic to help them in the process, 3 Ciabatta's later and it's over again.
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| Tiger bread. |
I'm excited at the premise of playing this with 3 friends, I don't have 3 friends but I'm excited all the same, short and fun like Left 4 Dead, Re-run same maps trying out new tactics each time with friends, love it, Shame about the every man for him self vibe I'm getting at the minute.
5th match now and I'm level 2 and my new perk is the ability to cycle weapons 50% faster, bread lovers level 23 no wonder he's fucking us up so much.
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| That game! |
5th lose in a row? Still learning the buttons, I realise Rb gives me a handy little shield and Lb drops mines, great. another tactic I've learnt is when everyone dies don't assault the big doughy bastard until the support has dropped in again. this being are failure every time trying to be the hero and not the team player
So close yet again, he can't heal 9 bars of health and a shield in the 2 minutes you have to hide from this bread lover, force the win should be our tactic!
This time I'm the Hobo with a mini gun Hank.
He has a cloak ability you can use to escape temporarily when things are getting ruff, why hasn't anyone used that before? I may have to try the Medic class next, Meat heads not so fun, Not like Hobo tank Hank.
Koi Koi
Caleb
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