'Evolve' Game Review Roundup: Monsters And Hunters And Trappers -- Oh My!

Turtle Rock Studios’ cooperative/competitive shooter “Evolve” launched on Tuesday, and some partial reviews are in. Critics seem to enjoy the title, which is the first of its kind – a shooter published by 2K Games that will allow four players to cooperatively hunt another player in the guise of a monster. The player who takes on the role of the monster, Goliath, Kraken, Wraith or Behemoth hunts and kills alone, while the team of four can hunt in four classes – assault, trapper, medic and support. A number of sites are still in the process of reviewing "Evolve," but we still included their initial impressions.

Check out the reviews below:

GameSpot – 8/10

“As with Turtle Rock’s ‘Left 4 Dead,’ ‘Evolve’ is best when you play with buddies; getting matched with a novice can lead to ghastly results if your newfound friend constantly seeks out the nonexistent ‘I’ in team,” GameSpot said. “It doesn’t take long to whip a newcomer into shape, at least, meaning you can usually focus on ‘Evolve’s’ unique brand of greatness: the suspense of the hunt, the exhilaration of battle, and the drive to dominate Shear. Even Sasquatch would shiver at the dangers.”

However, GameSpot pointed out that hunts can become boring if they continue for too long.

Polygon – 8/10 (provisional review)

“’Evolve’ occasionally brushes against a real breakthrough for Turtle Rock, with its distinctive take on a different kind of multiplayer shooter,” Polygon said. “New territory always presents new problems, and ‘Evolve’ doesn't always solve them. But it distinguishes itself from the pack of multiplayer options out there with the flair of something truly different.”

The site also called “Evolve” “different and ambitious,” though it criticized the time the game requires to unlock new characters. “The only practical way to really unlock everything is to play solo matches in specific modes to grind out masteries,” Polygon explained.

IGN – review still in progress

“Where a lot of high-concept games start with big promises and end in scaled back disappointment, this one achieves exactly what it set out to do,” IGN said. “Through an array of intelligent design choices, developer Turtle Rock Studios has created an asymmetric, multiplayer monster-hunting game that doesn’t play quite like anything else.”

IGN hasn’t given “Evolve” a score yet, but it did call the title a “game of possibilities,” praising its 12 maps, native wildlife and different types of matches available. The downfalls of “Evolve?” Players have to spend a certain amount of time involved with the game to meet various conditions to gain access to all of its features. “’Evolve’ has an unnecessarily long warm-up period,” IGN said.

PCGamer – review still in progress

“’Evolve’ can turn on a dime. Its rhythm differs slightly between map and mode, but generally speaking this is the most compressed multiplayer FPS since ‘Titanfall,’” PCGamer said, referencing Respawn Entertainment’s shooter from last March. The site also praised the game’s weapons and individual player abilities, confirming that most of the features of the game were “easy to learn, hard to master.”

Kotaku – review still in progress

“Everything in ‘Evolve’ is about evolution. The Monster eats to survive and to grow stronger. Each player individually plays enough to level up their characters across the board—unlocking new perks they can attribute per round, and unlocking new characters and their features,” Kotaku said. “But what interests me most in ‘Evolve’ is the evolution of the team itself, of players acting out their roles and learning to work together as a team.”

Kotaku pointed out that “tracking, buffing and dealing damage are the main tenets of ‘Evolve.’” However, the site questioned if the hype surrounding “Evolve” will die out quickly – like last year’s “Titanfall,” which showed a lot of promise, but “ran out of steam quickly.”