Happy Monday Duders - Evolve is the Real Monster Edition 01/19/15

It's another Monday. I played a couple of games that didn't come out this year and one that hasn't even released yet; but we'll get to that soon enough, trust me. I spent a huge amount of time this week watching stuff on GB because I was trying to catch up on some videos that I haven't had a chance to watch and that's a lot of fun. The guys have been doing a great job and I would like to especially thank Jason Oestreicher for changing the way that I view life thanks to this secret cable winding technique.

In the meantime let us discuss the games that I was able to play over the last seven days.

THE LAST WEEK IN GAMING

1. Evolve (Closed Beta on Steam)

THOUGHTS: Not too long ago I was really looking forward to playing Evolve because it looked like it would be a nice change of pace from what we’ve grown accustomed to in the multiplayer shooter space. The trailers shown over the past year made it seem cool, just maybe a little light on story and characters, but it focused on the idea of playing as an undstoppable behemoth.

Wait, no there are 3 monsters unless you pre-order. No, there may actually be 4 monsters in the game and you (could possibly or impossibly) get a fifth or a sixth by pre-ordering the PC Monster Race Edition (ugh) and you have a sweet chance to get exclusive early exclusive access if you get it for the XBOX ONE and can also have some more guns or tangerines or something… (screams out window) enough of this.

This game had promise. People wanted to play Evolve. However, over the course of the year the DLC implementation and the way that Turtle Rock Studios has said that the game was “built from the ground up” for DLC has made me go from someone who would probably buy Evolve to someone who will never pay money to play it.

Evolve! Evolving the way you pay for DLC!!!!

I’m sorry…

VERDICT: After playing the Beta on Steam this weekend I thought the game was “okay” it is really clunky at times to control and the monster seems overpowered, which is probably the point, but it just seems like a neat idea that isn't executed very well. If you can get by the fact that 2K is trying to nickel and dime you into an early grave with a Season Pass and DLC then you may like it. If you can try the Beta then I recommend you do that before you make a purchasing decision.

I don't like sounding so down about any game. I pride myself on being a positive person but the way this game has been flooded by pre-order bonuses is so egregious that I could not ignore it and it made me a bit angry that a game with a cool idea has been muddied with such shady business practices.

2. Bulletstorm

THOUGHTS: I understand that this game came out a few years back but I never got a chance to play it. I enjoyed the Gears of War games and seeing how much the environments in Bulletstorm looked like those in Gears I thought that it would be cool to play an extremely over the top game with that aesthetic. I was, mostly, right.

Bulletstorm is a pretty cool game that gets a bit repetitive but is cool enough with the leash and kick mechanic that you should stay interested long enough to complete the main story. It took me about 6 hours on Steam which was great for me because I was playing it to cross it off of the backlog list. The upgrades are pretty useless and the weapons, while a bit over the top, could have been even more-so. We will never get a sequel to Bulletstorm which is a little bit sad because I could see them taking that concept to some insane places if given the opportunity.

VERDICT: Try it. You can get it cheap and the campaign is short enough that you won’t have to invest a ton of time into completing a fun game.

3. Saints Row IV

THOUGHTS: I have barely scratched the surface of this. I loved Saints Row: The Third and I know that IV goes… places. The brand of crazy that this series brings is something I really like. Having played around 4 hours of this one so far I can already run up buildings, fly, and use telekinesis to pick up cars and throw at giant rock aliens. Really.

I plan to finish it over the next few days so I’ll be able to talk more next week.

VERDICT: I tried to have sex with Keith David. He has too much respect for me to do that… I appreciate you Keith David.

THE WEEK AHEAD

I played one game that I listed here last week. This section seems to be useless but I love it anyway because when I do next week’s blog I can look back at it and say, “I really should have played [insert game time] instead of Warframe.”

I didn’t play anymore Warframe last week. I opened it once. Left it open while I made a sandwich and when I came back with said sandwich I turned off Warframe and watched Z-Nation. (Shout out to @sparky_buzzsaw for allowing me to say that without feeling ashamed) Our eyes were opened to the magnificence of televisions best show in this wonderful blog Sparky's Update - Let's talk about Z Nation... check it out!!!!

Here’s what I probably will not play over the next 7 days…

• More Saints Row IV
• Puzzle Agent (I’m going to keep listing this until I actually play it)
• Binary Domain
• Divinity: Original Sin (this will not happen)

OPINION TIME

(See Evolve)

They announced DLC and Season Pass information before a trailer last year. That shouldn’t happen but hey it did because MONEY!!!!

Let me know in the comments what the best and worst pieces of DLC in gaming history are in your opinions.

Have a Happy Monday Duders. Thanks for reading and as always let me know what you think about this blog series.

The worst DLC is probably Disgaea 4's character packs. 2 bucks per character, and there's like 20 of them. Didn't stop me from buying almost all of them (didn't buy the ones from 3).

I have always wanted to play a Disgaea game but I never had the time to invest. Even hearing about this DLC mess they made I still want to try them...

The Vita version has all the DLC in it., if you have one of those. I highly recommend 1 and 4. 2 is good if you want more and D2 is good if you need more after that. 3 is not good.

@corevi: I do have a Vita!

I haven't played it in like 6 months so I may try to find a copy of it and try it out. I was a huge fan of strategy RPG's back in the PS1 day but I think everyone was then, at least everyone loved FF Tactics.

Ugh, I know that pain. I waited forever for Disgaea 4 to come to Vita just so I could avoid paying for the dlc, and then after riding the Disgaea train on the Vita I picked up Disgaea D2 and was suckered into buying all the dlc for that instead. I am not a responsible consumer.

Evolve has just been a big bummer this past month. The guys over at Turtle Rock claim not to have had a big hand in the dlc plans for the game, which sucks since this game will live or die by its community and I feel like 2K may have poisoned the well with all this confusing pre-order crap. I still really want to play the game, but I get the impression the reception will be handicapped by the gross marketing on the publisher's side.

2K has just gone so overboard with the way that they are trying to DLC the game to death. As I said in the blog I was actually looking forward to giving it a fair shot because I was interested in the 1v4 mechanic with the huge monster but I'm so put off by the nickel and dime crap.

Disregarding the DLC stuff, I don't think it would be worth $60 even with that stuff in it from the get go. Compared to Evolve, Destiny has more content than you could possibly imagine.

@corevi: you're absolutely right... there just isn't enough substance with Evolve to substantiate a $60 purchase. It's hard enough to convince people to buy a new IP but one that is so limited and multiplayer focused like Evolve is an even harder sale.

You have to have impeccable marketing and great word of mouth for something like Evolve to gain steam and it has had the exact opposite in both regards over the last few days.

I will also totally agree with you on the Destiny front. I have close to 100 hours in it and plan to jump back in pretty soon to check out some of the new content. I don't have a problem with DLC as a whole, I purchased the season pass for Destiny and feel like the new content is worth it or at least what I have seen of it so far is.

The price doesn't bother me especially. In an industry where $60 can mean 100+ of gameplay or 10 hours of gameplay, if the hours I spend with Evolve were memorable I would be satisfied. I enjoyed what I played of the beta, so if I can get some more of that I'll be satisfied. It might not be hailed as the best-for-value video game, but not everything needs to be.

Of course, if I were in the position were I could only afford a single game this year, I would be far more interested in the value proposition.

When I learned about Evolve's preorder bonus, especially lifting the grind heavy nature of hunter abilities, I went from being interested to FUCK THIS GAME. And that sucks, because I was a big fan of both L4D's. But I'm putting this squarely at the feet of 2k. Not cool.

2K have gone nuts with DLC and Season Passes.

I understand what you're saying and I'm not someone who usually cares about the price of a game when I know that I will enjoy what I get. Bioshock Infinite is a game that I happily paid full price for only to play the 12-15 hours of the story. I was hoping I would have a great time with Evolve but it just felt way too one note for me and it seemed like it would be something that, at most, I would play for a couple of weeks.

You have indie games on PC and console that have comparable levels of content as Evolve, and some with a deeper story experience, that are 10 or 15 bucks.

There are shooters releasing with even more content than before its a tougher market for AAA games like Evolve that focus on one specific thing to carve out a market share. Call of Duty is focused on MP but also comes with a campaign and a co-op mode. Destiny has a bunch of content.

A new Borderlands collection was announced today for XBOX One and PS4 that will offer a huge number of hours of gameplay for the same price as Evolve.

Thanks for commenting... your Breaking Bad cover photo is awesome!

That was probably the same time that I said the same thing. I'm pretty sick of the ways that DLC has been utilized in games over the last couple of years and Evolve uses every messed up way it can to try to get money from you...

I was a big Left 4 Dead fan and one good thing that came from me playing the Evolve beta on Steam was that I booted up L4D for the first time in a while. That is still an awesome game.

They really have. All of the Virtual Currency stuff in the NBA2K games, the DLC and Season Pass for WWE2K, and now all of this in Evolve. They're hurting the faith that consumers have in them.

EA did the same thing and are still trying to recover so 2K really needs to check themselves before they fall into the same situation that EA is digging out of.

That Evolve DLC is ridiculous. I didn't think that they would do this even though the game itself just finish it's beta.

Every time I think about Evolve, all I can think about is the fact that it was available to pre order before anyone even knew what it was, not even a trailer. At a certain point, you were basically preordering the word Evolve.

That's pretty standard fair for most big releases these days. As soon as a retailer catches word of a game announcement, they're all over ensuring that you are spending your money with them.

@sunbrozak: yeah, it's like that all the time these days....it's gross.

@panelhopper: To be fair though that's mostly the retailers and not the publisher.

@corevi: oh definately, retailers are a huge part of the problem. Amazon can be crazy with the early preorders sometimes. I've never really understood pre ordering a game blind.

Not only that but there was more information at that time about what the season pass would be than the actual game itself...

To add to my original blog post Turtle Rock Studios has made some statements regarding the backlash the game has received in relation to the dlc mess and it seems like they aren't too fond of the way it has been pushed, seemingly, more than the actual game itself and saying stuff like we just make games, we don't sell them.

Here's a good post on the Evolve forums I found on Reddit that the co-founder of the studio made about the way people are reacting to the season pass and dlc situation. I still think it's gross but I understand his perspective as the developer...

https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/turtle-rock-your-promise/26099/19