Evolution Battle for Utopia

Summary
Evolution: Battle For Utopia has amazing potential. It’s mix of strategy and battle sequences make it extremely interesting. It is similar to the old Starcraft, where there are mission to be carried out through dungeons, but there is also a base that needs to be built. The base is an ongoing venture, rather than an objective to be carried out within a mission, which gives the game a more RPG feel as well.

Description
Type: RTS/RPG
Platform: iPhone, iPad, Android
Players: 1
Age: 12 /Low Maturity
Game Time: Ongoing
Developer or Designer: My.Com
Publisher: Benstar ltd.

Pros

Cons

Review

The gameplay is easy to pick up. If you’ve ever even heard of real-time-strategy, you’ll be able to master the basics of this game. Collect resources, build up defences, build your arsenal, attack the bad guys. You are unable to build more than one thing at a time in Utopia. This includes research and upgrades, and that seems a little poor for an up-and-coming colony. You’d think that your team could multitask.



Battle for Utopia has some unique elements to it as well, like side missions that offer bonuses. Your character, accompanied by the cyborg canine, Fido, develops and levels up. This turns the game into a hybrid of RTS and RPG games, which is very interesting.



The battle sequences are reminiscent of the early Final Fantasies or even Fire Emblem. But they’re not turn-based exactly, there is real-time strategy involved—catching grenades, ducking to shield, attacking tender spots and more.



Then there’s the minigames. Hacking is great fun, matching up the nodes without intersecting the others before the time runs out—it’s an engaging little brainteaser. There are others, like ‘remember the sequence’ and so on, and they’re pretty well designed.



Graphics. They are exceptional. The cinematics are impossibly well-rendered, especially for a little mobile game. The actual gameplay is nice to look at too. It might be a bird’s eye view, but it is still aesthetically pleasing. The other artwork is well produced, if a little generic.



The game is fun, and it’s addictive like any good mobile phone game, but the storytelling is severely lacking. This is where the potential lies. There was a lot of time and effort put into this game, and it shows, it’s wonderfully rendered and very fun to play.



But to really enjoy it, you have to ignore the storyline—or lack there of. Essentially, your character finds a barren planet, decides that it would be good to colonise it, and the first thing to do is to clear out the “savage” natives that already inhabit the planet. So, with your very white group of comrades, your extremely American-soldier-poster-boy sets out to systematically eradicate everyone that stands between him and precious resources. The savages only want to steal and take your “babes”. By the way, the sexy scientist and pseudo-tough-girl wearing tiny outfits are tired cardboard cut outs.



It is sad that the story is lacking, because the game is actually very well made and worth playing. It’s very fun if you’re not fully engaged with it. Soundtrack also rocks.

Categories
#rts
#rpg
#1_player
#Sci-Fi
#mobile
#iphone
#android
#military


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