EvilVEvil is a first-person co-op shooter developed by Toadman Interactive. In a gritty, cyberpunk world, EvilVEvil pits you, a Vampire warrior of the Order of the Dragon, a group dedicated to protecting humanity throughout the centuries. Awakened from your century-long rest period and tasked with uncovering the evil plans of the Cult is Zagrus, you set out on a one to three-person wrecking crew across various levels and maps.
The story of EvilVEvil is a straightforward affair that misses out on some great story beats and twists. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, some dialogue illudes to deeper and potentially impactful moments that never culminate in anything of real meaning or weight. As an example, there is a moment that alludes to one of the three selectable vampires being connected to the evil Zagrus. As there is so little character development throughout the narrative run, this moment carries no weight as you have no real connection to the character up to this point.
This is a common thread with the lore throughout EvilVEvil. There is a lot of great groundwork in the premise and world-building, but so little of it is unpacked in any real detail. As a player, you are left feeling apathetic to what is happening, why it is happening or why you should care. This is unfortunate because the premise of Vampires using their powers to preserve and protect humanity while still being evil at their core is a fresh take on the vampire mythos and one that could have led to some deep, thought-provoking moments. Instead, we are served a fairly generic story with no real character development.
“The story of EvilVEvil is a straightforward affair that misses out on some great story beats and twists.”
While EvilVEvil struggles to present a compelling story, it does make up for it with some fun, fast-paced gameplay. This is the heartbeat of EvilVEvil. Combat feels smooth and lightning-fast with little to no downtime. Levels are designed to encourage fast, continual movement around the map, leveraging verticality to gain an advantage over foes. Leveraging a hovering style mechanic that can be activated by either holding down the space bar or jumping and then aiming down the sights of your active weapon, players can hover for several seconds, offering them another means of traversing the environment.
As for gunplay, it’s solid and fun. With a mix of pistols, auto rifles, burst-fire rifles, and shotguns (to name a few) to choose from, players can easily cater the combat to their preferred style. Thanks for some decent progression systems (more on this in a moment); guns progress with you, allowing for further refinement of playstyle.
Each Vampire (three to choose from) comes with traits and abilities unique to them. Each represents a different archetype, with Victoria taking on the role of assassin, Leon a Brawler and Mashaka an Archanist. Each comes with two unique abilities and a third feed ability native to each class. The latter is a means of healing and temporarily boosting your character in the heat of battle.
As for the former two abilities, they play specific roles within your combat cycle. The Q abilities are a mix of damage and movement. In the case of Victoria, whom I used for the bulk of the campaign, She dives forward with her two swords, eviscerating anyone in her path. Leon and Mashaka implore similar movement abilities with their own unique flair in line with their play style.
The E ability, on the other hand, is designed as an AOE-style damage ability. Once again, in Victoria’s case, she sends out shadow copies of herself, slicing up multiple enemies that are visible on the screen. Having tested all three characters, each feels unique and adds a different flair to the combat experience. Combat is the best part of EvilVEvil and helps make up for some of the shortcomings (e.g. story). When playing with up to two friends, things become a lot of fun, and engaging play sessions are offered for everyone involved.
While combat is the highlight of EvilVEvil, there are a few things related to NPC engagement that could use some polish. While the base enemy types are solid enough, aside from a few additions throughout the campaign, there isn’t a huge amount of variety here. Even bosses simply feel like more powerful versions of basic enemies and lack any real distinguishing characteristics or personality.
“While the base enemy types are solid enough, aside from a few additions throughout the campaign, there isn’t a huge amount of variety here.”
More variety of enemy types and bosses that offer some kind of mechanic other than the run and gun that makes up the majority of EvilVEvil would be welcome and help improve the overall experience. While the enemies introduced work well and offer endless hordes of baddies for you to decimate, the cycle gets stagnant fairly quickly, leaving you wondering why you’re still playing.
Additionally, enemies don’t always feel engaging. Animations feel a bit stiff, with NPC’s sometimes simply standing in place. In this way, the AI feels a bit wooden and lacking. Even on higher levels of difficulty, while the damage numbers are higher, the actual AI respond the same way.
However, level design does help keep combat interesting despite the lack of variety. Leveraging verticality and some unique settings, EvilVEvil creates some great moments of white-knuckle combat (especially in harder levels of difficulty). Moving around the map constantly feels engaging and well-designed, though a lack of vaulting over objects or being able to grab onto ledges feels like a missed opportunity. Despite this, though, each level has a unique look and feel and works well.
“Leveraging verticality and some unique settings, EvilVEvil creates some great moments of white-knuckle combat.”
Some of the criticism up to this point is offset by a decent progression system that offers some reason to keep playing. Progression is handled through a couple of different systems in EvilVEvil. The first and most impactful is the weapon modification system. Each weapon comes with a series of unlockable mod slots. The longer you utilize a weapon, the more slots you unlock.
Additionally, each weapon has a max mod number associated with it, with each mod costing a set amount to slot in the weapon. The more kills you stack up with a weapon, the more mod points you can spend. Finally, some mods themselves can be upgraded, allowing for more devastating effects as you play.
A similar system called artifacts is also in play but is associated with the selected vampire. These artifacts and slots work the same way but are tied to the vampire level. The more you use that vampire, the more slots and artifact points you will have to work with. Additionally, as you level a vampire, certain weapons will become available, unique to the class. This adds one more reason to continue to come back to EvilVEvil.
While I do enjoy the progression system, there are a couple of areas that could use a little polish. For example, while you can see what each vampire level-up will bring at the moment when you hover over any unlockable item or artifact on the progression map, there is no tooltip information to let you know what it does. This leaves you guessing and potentially let down at your next level. A small change here would help motivate players to continue to progress with a vampire and keep them playing a little longer.
EvilVEvil is a decent shooter that simply needs some polish. Refining some of the aforementioned mechanics would go a long way in improving the overall gameplay loop. Unfortunately, the biggest missed opportunity here is the story. Toadman Entertainment throws out a lot of unique and interesting ideas but never really ties them together in an impactful way. Regardless, when priced at $19.99 and offering a solid co-op experience, EvilVEvil is still worth considering if you’re looking for a drop-in, drop-out co-op FPS.
