I wish you a pleasant weekend, but unfortunately I have something unpleasant to share: Sometimes I don’t like you. For example, when you write game reviews. First, you take work away from me (which is fine), and second, you destroy things I love (which is not fine). But let me start from the beginning …
Why I don’t like some of you!
I had to tie up and gag my boss to publish this edition of the column now; through the cloth I can still hear him groaning: “Say nothing against a reader, NOTHING AGAINST THE READERS!” (maybe I just dreamt that part). I’ll get straight to the point: You broke Evolve.
Why is that? Just take a look at the Steam page for Evolve. The first thing that catches every user’s eye is the assessment from other players. And it says in alarming red: Mixed – 35% of 12,000 reviews were negative. That is incredibly off-putting. It even deterred my friends, so I had to do some demonic convincing.
Those who go to the trouble (and very few do) of reading the reviews in detail will find that almost all evaluations come from players with less than 5 hours of playtime. That’s usually how long it takes to get through the introductory phase until you actually know how to properly use the tricks and tips of a character/monster. That alone isn’t bad; I know some games that just don’t captivate me right away. However, what drives me really crazy about this, I want to illustrate with a few examples:
These are just two randomly selected reviews. In their essence, the negative comments rarely differ (not to mention that they often contain complete untruths). The consensus is always: DLCs have ruined the game. How exactly did the DLCs do that? How did content that is coming in the future take away your fun now? I can only come to one conclusion: The mere announcement of a DLC must drastically reduce the enjoyment of the game. And because 2K/TurtleRock were so honest and for a change published their future plans before the release, they had to be hated. Do you really believe that other game developers only start with DLC plans after the release? Grrrr.
“Why didn’t we play this earlier?”
For me, Evolve is still one of the best games I have ever played. When I get friends to join in now, I often hear “Why didn’t we play this earlier?!”
Yes, I also don’t like DLCs in principle, but unfortunately they are necessary in today’s times to continuously develop multiplayer games. Does that make a whole game bad and not enjoyable? No. Even without the DLCs, it offers fun for several hundred hours. I wish some people would think before giving a review about what the entire assessment of a game could be based on. Even if you don’t do that, I won’t leave you alone with Evolve. I will report on it until my boss unties me. And that could take a while. Ha.
