Evolve (by the folks what did Left 4 Dead) - The Bear and Badger

Subbax

I can't get into a match at all. Run out of time also. Rats.

pantyfire

I was just about to ask Moto for his spare code but I watched about 2hrs of twitch gameplay today and I don't think it's for me.
One guy was very good at it and as the monster he just ran away, evolved to L2 then attacked and ran away, if the team were any good then he might go to L3 and that was it. Run away, attack, run away attack.
As the hunters it all seemed a little messy and highly susceptible to the curse of the random team mates.

Tempy

I had a shaky time on it because my PC doesn't meet the minimum specs, but I got a few rounds as Hunters and Monsters. Demo makes you unlock the various extra variants on the class from what I can tell, so they might add some more spice to the Hunters as I know they get all sorts of gadgets to play with. I know one team I played had an orbital barrage skill which neat.

The Monster is a lot of fun, but a team of organised hunters can properly lock you down, the tradeoff being your stamina for jumping is increased during fights so you can barrel around taking them all out. I found hiding tough too, as you ideally want to put distance between you and the hunters, but also be quiet so you don't leave signs that you've been around. Got picked off at Level 3 by a brilliant pincer movement from one team, they hemmed me into a sentry nest and just wailed on me.

I can see it being a lot of fun with a dedicated group of friends, and also incredibly frustrating if you play as the monster and come up against a crack team.

Hopefully there are a few other creepies in there as well, Kraken looks pretty interesting too as he's almost the opposite of Goliath, all about ranged lightning attacks.

Edit: Goober covered most of this actually. There's definitely layers, just like there was with L4D.

g.man

So, this is a broken waste of time if you're in a party then.
Finally got in solo with randoms, which is utterly pointless, and it seemed like utter pish to me.

next

g.man

Facewon

May indeed be shit, but asymmetrical vs always strikes me as needing bigger leeway than straight death match.

pantyfire

It doesn't look shit. Personally I'm just a bit weary of these asymmetrical MP games. They can get predictable quickly

Bollockoff

First game I was the death wish Russian. Spent most of the game at the back of a running conga line as we tried to chase down the monster directly but he engaged us at lv2 and massacred everyone. Probably not helped by me being overwhelmed by gameplay at that point.

Second game was against a lv 1 player who was the monster. As you'd expect he was chased down at lv 1 pretty quickly. I had the common sense to put the arena up and that was that. Not really very fun considering, though not that it was his fault.

Dogfingers

I don't think much of this, bearing in mind I've only played as the monster approx 10 games.

There's no feed back when you're smashing your opponents. I'm hitting the hunters with my massive arms and I can see the health bar go down but where is thud as their body flies 10 feet backwards? It should play like the tank ala Left 4 Dead but it doesn't.

I won once by fighting them all in a corridor and burning them. I fail to see where the strategy lies other than picking the right place to fight the hunters. It plays like a clunky slog and it's no fun what so ever.

Elmlea

I remember I played the L4D demo, and didn't get it, and it turned out to be the best game of that year for MP. Hopefully this will surprise me the same way.

@pantyfire, what other asymmetric MP games have there been recently? Other than the L4D pair I can't think of any, but would be willing to look at some.

pantyfire

Any Battlefield game from the past 8 years when your the only bugger trying to capture conquest flags.

g.man

Hahaha

Webbins

Playing what we could of the alpha on Saturday just made me yearn for L4D3. I get where they are going with this, and it will need a more competent beta to convince me, but having played one game as the monster and one as a trapper, I'm not sure this will take off.

pantyfire

I just got a strange email from GAME asking for people to take part in a 'discussion' group re this game.
It said if you were selected that it would be Mon Dec1 (I chose a 5pm slot), it would consist of playing the game and then talking about it in a group. The whole thing would be and hour and a half and you would get a £30 GAME voucher at the end of it.
The game itself is not really up my ally but I signed up.

Speedhaak

Any interest about for this? Pre-ordered it in Gamestop last Friday and the dude was like "you're like only one of a handful of people who's even bothered to pre-order" - We had a bit of a chat about it and I mentioned it's probably because they've done an exceptionally shit job with regards to the games marketing and communicating what it actually is. Most of my friends are assuming it's another Arena FPS for example.

g.man

The utterly broken Alpha/Beta/Whateverthefuckitwas a few months back did it no favours at all.

not interested

g.man

Speedhaak

Yeah, something tells me the pre-order might go towards something else at this stage.

Curtis

The Alpha was a clusterfuck, but I heard the Beta was miles better!

I don't think they've done a good enough job of promoting the other game modes, most of which sound way more interesting than your standard 'hide & seek' scenario.

My biggest concern, besides the obvious balancing issues, is that this is a game you have to get on release and play/learn alongside everyone else. Late adopters will be completely fucked and left struggling, which leads to zero fun and major frustration.

I'd definitely take a risk on it if I knew there were 3-4 other players on my friends list that I could team up with regularly (hint-hint). The other key factor of course being: playing this solo with randoms (when you're not the monster) is a huge no-no!

Bollockoff

I think a bit of teamwork on both sides would have been better. 2 monsters versus 8 hunters or something like that.

IanHamlett

What about 8 soldiers vs 8 soldiers?

Bollockoff

Too radical. Consumers can't handle the symmetry.

Bollockoff

Srsness I think developers should start looking at asymmetrical multiplayer ventures a lot more. Evolve just doesn't do it for me that much.

IanHamlett

What if some of them had towels on their head?

g.man

Would these towels be red or blue?

pantyfire

There's other game modes!?

Speedhaak

pantyfire wrote:

There's other game modes!?

Yeah this is it like. They've done an awful job on the marketing and letting players know what the game is actually fucking about.

[Deleted User]

Speedhaak wrote:

They've done an awful job on the marketing and letting players know what the game is actually fucking about.

It's about that Charles Dickens bloke that invented the Evolutions, no?

IanHamlett

They announced DLC before almost anything else. Their marketing of this would be a "how not to" case if the X1 launch didn't eclipse everything else.

Curtis

pantyfire wrote:

There's other game modes!?

How about Evacuation which combines 5 games into one extended scenario:

How does Evacuation work?

While it isn’t a campaign in the classic sense, there is a story to tell: The planet Shear is getting overrun by Monsters. Within five days, the battle for Shear will be won or lost depending on the actions of four Hunters…and, of course, one mutating Monster. Those five days are broken up into five rounds as you fight your way across the planet. The first round is always Hunt, on a randomly chosen map.

Hunt
It’s a race for the Monster to eat enough within the environment to evolve to stage 3, and find the power relay on the map to destroy the objective. All along, the Hunters and Monster play cat-and-mouse, hoping to kill for a quick victory.
After that first victory, players continue the fight to one of two adjoining territories, voting on location and mode.

Nest
Nest mode has the Monster player protecting its brood, randomly scattered all over the map, while the Hunters are out to scramble some alien eggs. If the Monster is able to get to the eggs, it has the option to hatch one of them into a minion – a stage 1 Goliath that runs around, aggro-ing Hunters. Hunters win by destroying all the eggs and the minion, or killing the Monster.

Rescue
Injured colonists trying to escape the Monsters are placed randomly on the map. Hunters need to locate, revive and protect them as they make their escape. Monsters need to munch on as many of these colonists as possible and keep them from getting away. Whoever saves – or kills – the majority of the colonists, wins. After carving through four matches, comes the final showdown:

Defend
This is it – the last stand. Winner takes all. If you’re playing from the Hunter perspective, you’re desperately defending the Evacuation point while the ship is fueling up to escape. As a Monster, you’re leading hordes of Goliath minions as you attack the Evacuation point in waves. Will the Monsters break through and destroy everything? Or will the colonists get away in time?

g.man

Nah, sounds rubbish.

Curtis

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