Amid Evil is an FPS that hearkens back to the 90’s shooters of yesteryear with its fast-paced, over the top action. We play as an unnamed hero that has managed to get a legendary axe crafted by the gods and thus received their favor. That amounts to him being transported into a massive, empty structure full of portals and being tasked with defeating an unknown evil that has engulfed various realms. It serves as the hubworld to select which episode to tackle next, as well as allows you to choose your difficulty in the Quake like manner of physically going through a portal. There are four overall difficulty modes to choose from, with the hardest among them being hidden from the player.
Axe in hand, you leave the safety of these empty temples and into a new, hostile world. It wastes no time leaving you gawking at its impressive vistas at the start of an episode. In fact, the first episode finds you on a cliff overlooking a temple beneath and has you jump down an insane height directly into a nearby lake. Right off the bat, there are a ton of secrets to find for the keen-eyed adventurers out there, or you could simply approach the temple which greets you with your first few enemies. Your axe is unlike your typical melee weapon. It actually pulls your enemy towards you, allowing you to easily chop apart even the most agile of foe.
The weapon selection here is, to put it plainly, simply amazing. You will have access to seven unique weapons ranging from a saber that shoots out a slash of energy, to a wand that shoots out actual planets. It is an incredibly creative lineup, and all retain their usefulness throughout the entirety of this journey. All of them require one of four mana types to use, with some weapons sharing a mana type, forcing you to pick the right tool for the job to burn through less ammo. Defeating enemies will cause them to leave behind their souls, and once you consume enough, you can briefly access all of your weapon’s alt-fire modes. These attacks pack an extreme punch and will quickly turn the tide of battle toward your favor. Each shot will also take up more mana as a trade-off.
Combat in Amid Evil is very satisfying for a vast number of reasons. Most notable are the wonderful ways enemies can be affected by your attacks such as being struck by your rail-gun like Mace, then flying dozens of feet across the environment from its impact, and being impaled into a wall. It also features small touches such as them being able to be dismembered depending on where you struck them. That leads to awesome moments when you aim at a far off foe’s torso for an easier shot, manage to chop him in half after a few ranged strikes, and turning around to decapitate a foe who was trying to sneak up on you with a point-blank range shot. There are a ton of death animations, and all are quite satisfying to take a bit of time to view before continuing the fight as his nearby comrades try to do the same to you.
One of your first weapons will be the easiest one to use. It is called the Staff of Azure and fires orbs of blue energy that will automatically home in on enemies. The damage caused by it is not high, yet will remain an invaluable tool against far off or hard to reach flying foes or those that lurk in the muddy waters below. It is an excellent weapon to test out a new monster’s toughness since it allows you to solely focus on your movement to avoid whatever attack he may have. That’s another thing that makes the combat feel so fun, the lack of hit-scan attacks. Every projectile can be dodged with fast enough reactions and footwork, allowing skilled players to walk out of battles unscathed and feeling badass. The act of swerving through multiple projectiles and dancing around melee-based attacks all while firing back a ruthless barrage of death is what ’90s FPS games are known for and Amid Evil more than captures that.
The title is split into seven episodes, each containing a few levels and a unique theme. While they may only have a few for each, these are massive stages that will take you quite some time to trudge through. With the sheer size of them and the number of things you’ll be required to do, I never found myself not knowing where to go. The level design is really tight and features many things to keep it from being a nonstop battle, including keycards, platforming, as well as light puzzles. Most of your time will be spent in combat however, as destroying the source of evil in all the episodes will not be an easy task, and your foes only get more deadly as you progress.
Every episode features their own unique monsters to fit into the theme. There is lore behind each location and their inhabitants to be found in the Codex, though it is hardly necessary for those that don’t want to read. If it moves, shoot it. If nothing is moving, that’s when you should be concerned. Amid Evil gets quite challenging towards the end. It will put to the test all that you have learned and disorient you with the increasingly alien worlds you’ll find yourself in. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, but despite that has a pseudo retro look to its high detailed 3D models by including 2D sprites, as well as low polygon enemies. This mix up of both new and old graphical styles ended up working really well. It does not lack color either. Darn near everything seems to have a magical tone to it, making the dreary locations that much more impactful.
Your overall objective is to destroy the boss found at the end of every episode. That is seven boss fights to look forward too, though you may quickly find a bit of an issue with them due to being able to activate your weapon’s alt-fire by having enough souls. You can absolutely destroy them in mere seconds by using the Mace’s alt-fire mode, robbing yourself of a good fight. The meter that fills up when you collect souls is called Overkill, and by default, it will only activate if you choose it to. In the options menu, you can set it to automatically activate once it fills up, Painkiller style as to avoid cheesing boss fights and have more instances where you can enjoy using it instead of saving it for that purpose. Purposely handicapping yourself is not ideal nonetheless, and it is a shame facing these overwhelming forces are so unbalanced towards your favor.
After defeating one, you will be thrust back into the over-world and allowed to select another world to take on. That also means that all of your weapons and ammo will be taken away. I usually don’t mind this, but by having seven episodes, that means all your stuff will be taken away that many times. At least it does do a decent job of giving you back your equipment quickly and does allow it to force you to rely on weapons you otherwise wouldn’t. Another small issue I take with Amid Evil is The Forge episode. It features many ridiculous Crash Bandicoot like traps and platforming situations that don’t blend well with the low jump height of our character. This constantly slows the game down to do something unenjoyable. By no means is it a bad episode, though it does amplify the title’s weaker aspects simply by the sheer volume found in it.
Once you are done with the campaign, there is also an Endless mode that allows you to fight enemies in a couple of select locations until you die. In it, you don’t start off with anything but your axe and must immediately scramble to find a more suitable weapon as enemies are already at your heals. You must rush across the level collecting mana to actually use them in the first place as well and creates an exciting dynamic that has you always on the move looking for more ammo to defend yourself with. All the while this mode throws a random slew of all of the game’s enemies at you, even if they don’t fit into that specific theme. You won’t have much time to notice that as you frantically sprint your way out of an attack and try not to get surrounded since a single hit can be quite devastating in the long run, due to very little health being available in this mode. Also worth mentioning is the announcer enthusiastically stating when you get multiple kills and starts to become concerned when you manage to get a chain of over 10 kills. That playful nature is a nice contrast to the usually serious tone of the campaign.
These past few years have seen a great resurgence of 90’s style shooters. Previously having released Dusk a year ago, the publishers New Blood Interactive have now brought us Amid Evil, an equally fantastic title. The best part is that not only do these titles match their inspirations, but I’d also say they surpass them in many regards. Not content to simply pay homage to the classics, they have evolved their formula and created experiences that should be had even if you’ve played a ton of games in this genre. The few complaints that I have with Amid Evil lies with how easy it is to cheese your way through a boss battle and an episode that tries to turn it into a pseudo-3D platformer. Everything else from the music, graphics, enemy variety, and especially the combat is top-notch. This is a title not to be missed by FPS fans.
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