BlackPool Bossfight #2: ev.io

We are in 1999, Christmas is approaching. You hang out in the closest video-game store, playing all you can on the Playstation available, and suddenly you have an epiphany. You haven't experienced this since Doom, but it's somehow better... You just discovered Quake 3 Arena.

Being a child at the time, I was amazed by the speed of the gameplay, all the lore in the leaflet (every character, every monster was described in detail).

That year was something special: Unreal Tournament also arrived on Playstation. The fast fps era was born, and would change everything for a while.

Real Tournament

We introduced the game with a nostalgic moment, not only to make you feel old, but because ev.io is a beautiful tribute to this era. It all started in BlackPool like any good story: someone told us "Did you try this game? It's pretty cool...". We launched one game, then 2, then 10, then a full afternoon was gone in a blink.

One of the greatest things about this game is that you can literally play in 2 clicks: go to ev.io on your browser, click on "Play", you are good to go. Accessibility at its best. Then you can choose between different type of games, all the classics are here: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Battle Royale... And for a web3 game, it's a real pleasure to see the team focusing on making it easy to understand and super accessible.

EV, use Shotgun!

One of the funniest aspect of the game is to create your "build". You have a limited and fixed amount of points to spend in different capacities (actives or passives). Do you prefer to triple jump, or to teleport two times? Do you prefer to reload faster or to run more before being exhausted? Do you prefer using flashbang or boost grenades? A fast sniper to a super fast gun? All of this is up to you, and you can adapt your build to your favourite type of gameplay. And if you ever played fast fps before, you will love this possibility.

On the other side, it is a basic fast fps: more powerful weapons are spawning on the map, people are respawning everywhere, you can use teleporters, boost your jumps with grenades (instead of the famous rocket jump).

But does basic means boring? Absolutely not. Using an already working formula, but with actual technology is definitely not boring. Having a fast FPS, playable on almost any computer, no installation, 60fps is an achievement. The sound design is crispy and hectic (in a good way), everything is happening super fast and is even better with friends.

Solana Summer or Solana Wintour?

As far as the blockchain integration, there is definitely no gated access. You can play for free, have fun, and access almost all the same things as someone who has bought some NFTs. The only difference is that you can only have access to the economic part of the game with an NFT and the "Earn" games. Is it worth it? At the moment, to be honest, no. But the team is working actively on balancing the actual earnings system, to avoid the 90%/10% law: 10% wins 90% of the money, and 90% of players gain the last 10%. Seeing a team actually concerned and working on it is a very good point.

Can you make a living out of it? Absolutely not, and it is not their goal. All the allocated money to players is coming from a sponsor pool, updated every month. There is no ponzi going on: Is there $20k in the player's pool? Then $20k is distributed during the month between the players, with an average per kill. We personally made around $0.20/hour playing ev.io. Is it frustrating? No, because you can just buy a PFP (an ingame skin) to boost your earnings, and to have a classy style, and as a bonus you earn a little bit of money. But you play the game because it is a good game, and more games should focus on this approach.

Conclusion

In the end, should you play ev.io? Hell yes. Fun to try, a very steep progression curve, easy to get in.

The cons are that the game is not as beautiful compared to other modern video games, a lot of bots sometimes, and some cheaters (even if the team is currently working actively on this).

So you got it: we love ev.io.

• Gameplay: 9/10
• Graphics: 7/10
• Blockchain Integration: 9/10
  
  Final grade: 8.5/10