Are you familiar with My.com? It’s a subsidiary of the Mail.Ru Group that publishes apps like myChat and myCamera for mobile devices. Most interestingly (to me), My.com also makes games for PC and mobile.
Their latest game Evolution: Battle for Utopia launched exclusively on iOS at the beginning of April, quickly becoming a top game in over 125 countries. Evolution combines third-person shooter gameplay, base building, strategy, and Player-versus-Player battles in a very slick package. If you’re looking for an iPhone and iPad game with impressive graphics and a variety of gameplay styles, look no further.
Paradise Lost
The premise of the game revolves around a colony world called Utopia. After losing contact with its colony, Earth sends a team of space marines to investigate. Players arrive on the planet to find it overrun with aliens and ne’er-do-wells. You’ll have to establish a base and complete a variety of missions as you investigate the colony’s fate and try to reestablish order.
There is some story to Evolution, with various NPC interactions and planetary lore to unlock. That’s all very perfunctory though, serving mostly as an excuse to get players out into the field and completing missions. Luckily the gameplay proves more interesting.
Combat
Evolution’s stand-out feature is its third-person shooting segments. During missions, your marine will take to the field and take on waves of attacking soldiers and monsters. You’ll also have a sidekick for support. The first is a cute robot dog, but a variety of human characters will eventually come along for the ride.
Knowing that shooter controls can be unwieldy on touch screen devices, the developer has crafted a simplified and intuitive control scheme for Evolution’s shooting. Your soldier stands in place and fires automatically, giving the game a shooting gallery feel. But players can perform a variety of moves such as swiping to activate a shield or take cover, tapping enemies to shoot faster, catching grenades thrown by enemies, and throwing grenades of your own.
Restoring Utopia
In-between missions, you’ll want to grow and manage your base. These parts play like a mild city-builder. New buildings cost resources, take time to build, and generate resources of their own. The ammo and items created at your base will keep you supplied during combat. The base can also come under attack, so building good defenses is a must.
Evolution is heavier on In-App Purchases than some free to play games, so you might have to spend some money to remain competitive in PvP. You’ll also need the patience to check back in throughout the day as you wait for process to finish and resources to recharge. But that sort of gameplay works well on phones and tablets. Hop in, do a few missions, and hop out as needed.
With lots of things to do (and shoot), action and strategy fans won’t want to miss Evolution: Battle for Utopia.
- Free – Download now
Reader comments
Evolution: Battle for Utopia stakes a claim on iOS
Oh good. Just what we need: another crap freemium game.
You've played it to arrive at that conclusion?
If you've played one Freemium game, you've played them all.
Fail.
ಠ益ಠ
Cool story, bro.
That's a specious perspective since there are lots of different ways to monetize free to play games. Plants vs. Zombies 2 for instance is not monetized in nearly the same way as Evolution or your average city builder. Also, the majority opinion also differs on whether free to play games are good or bad, since they obviously make a lot of money. Judging free to play games on a case-by-case basis is much more productive, and it's not even hard to do since they cost nothing to download.
Actually, it's the principle. By continuing to support freemium games, you encourage the prevalence of the model. I don't want a game that I have to keep dumping money into to play, nor do I want a game that's gimped without spending money on it. I want to buy a game and play it to its fullest. The reason that model is dying is because people are cheap and these same people dump dozens of dollars into freemium games like gambling addicts in a casino. It's a sad evolution of gaming that needs to die.
I can't change that, but I can refuse to download each and every game that subscribes to the "freemium" or "paymium" model and I know I won't be missing anything. I happily buy games that don't have IAPs and support those developers. It's unfortunate that more people don't.
It doesn't have to be the fail that is Dungeon Keeper to apply. Just about every "free" game is a lame duck without dumping money on it. Charge me $5 for the game and be done with it. Otherwise, you'll never get a download from me.
Paid or not still bad not for Android......
Too bad we are an Android user