EvilVEvil Review – Shallow Vampire Bites

Vampires are famed for their speed and stealth, perfect to turn these bloodsucking creatures of the night into lethal machines, which is precisely what they are in EvilVEvil. Not without the help of some human weaponry though, resulting in a bloody mix of blinking, shooting, and slashing in old-school ways, where waves of enemies are waiting for you and a couple of your vampire kin to cross various levels with simple objectives, but above all, a lot of biting to do. Or maybe too much biting and not much else, as it turns out.

Biting Your Way Around

There is a story in EvilVEvil regarding a cult that is a threat to humanity, but it’s not truly spectacular. In fact, the communications during each stage tend to become bothersome and break the flow of the fast gameplay, since sometimes we have to wait for the dialogue to end before the next goal is displayed, which is frankly a blow to the stomach of vampires in search for speed. Exposition isn’t all that exciting, narrative is on the bland side, and it gets in the way of the action.

EvilVEvil is a three-player cooperative shooter coming with three vampires – or Daywalkers as they are also known here – to choose from and 12 missions to tackle, a fairly slim offering overall, considering that you’ll get through most of them in little time, unless you choose a higher difficulty level to ramp up the challenge.

For lack of a better description, gameplay in EvilVEvil is akin to some classic, uncomplicated shooters of the past. This means taking out waves of enemies, completing a simple objective once in a while – mostly activating something, carrying an item somewhere or destroying a target – and moving on to the next area, rinse and repeat. Your vampire assortment is nothing spectacular, with a special attack ability, a unique ability for each character – Mashaka blinks to teleport some distance (and potentially to get out of places where your character occasionally gets stuck); Victoria summons this deadly shadow that dashes on enemies; Léon has a useful slam ability – and a feed/bite action that restores some health and also propels you forward quite some distance.

This feed action is very useful in various ways, even with the slight cooldown, as it fosters fast movement and a somewhat hypnotic chain of actions that becomes exciting to use in combination with the gunplay. The idea is to always keep on the move, away from harm, and taking down the brainless enemies one right after the other, with some cinematic flair to it.

Regarding weapons, these are mostly pleasant to use, even if entirely familiar. From rifles to shotguns and SMGs, among others, it’s known territory for the most, but their use is enjoyable. It’s weird seeing weapons being locked for a specific character in such a game, which means that the fairly shallow progression system will turn into a grind as you are pushed to play with the various vampires and limited to their kits.

Where it gets interesting is when you start adding mods that play around with weapon stats and that can also be upgraded to improve their effectiveness. Artifacts, on the other hand, are passives assigned to the Daywalkers and another way to increase your abilities or make the most out of some action combinations.

But it gets repetitive, extremely repetitive. Apart from a change of scenario as we move from warehouses to crypts, city streets, and your mandatory facility, it all feels the same. It’s mostly the same enemy types throughout, the same moving from one feed to the other, mowing down a few stronger foes in the process, taking out snipers, and completing goals that are as repetitive and simple as they come. Either design choice or lack of creativity, the fact is that the process becomes tiresome after a while.

Not Entirely Sucking, But…

In terms of visual direction, EvilVEvil is a bit rough on the edges. First impressions are quite mediocre, warehouse level looking like something out of the early 2000s, and the looks only improve slightly as you move into the city streets and begin realizing that the art and the areas have a certain flair to them and are not that bad. But there’s no going past the fact that enemy models – and your very own playable vampires – are extremely rough, the UI is crude, and it could have done with some more time in the oven… or the coffin, in this case.

The gameplay does grow on you a little bit, from a quite frankly shallow start, but it doesn’t go to the heights that it could reach. Gunplay is fun but at the service of bland core mechanics that get tiresome quickly, and the abilities are very slim and don’t add much in terms of diversity to the package. As far as co-op shooters go, EvilVEvil is serviceable but the bite doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

Score: 6/10

Pros:

• Fast and uncomplicated action
• Gunplay is enjoyable

Cons:

• Vampires with very limited abilities and progression potential
• Stages and goals are quite repetitive
• Bland graphics

EvilVEvil review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.

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