Evolva

Evolva is a third-person action game, released in 2000. The player leads a team of 4 "Genohunters" exploring a planet; each of the Genohunters can develop new abilities by incorporating and altering the DNA they've absorbed from the creatures they have killed. The Genohunters will change their physical appearance (change colors, develop spikes or horns) based on the DNA they've used to mutate themselves. Your Genohunters can punch, jump, super jump, breathe fire, vomit flammable liquids, shoot explosives, scramble enemies brains and spawn small alien offspring that injure enemies.

The game has 12 large, linear levels populated with alien insect-like creatures known as the "parasite guardians". There are different types of these alien creatures. In some of the levels there are "Bosses" at the end which your team of Genohunters must defeat.


 * Action Bomb / Taking You with Me: Flame Parasites catch fire, and explode after a few seconds, when they're killed.
 * Alien Kudzu: The Parasite proves to be able to fill the whole planet with its mooks. Seriously, just compare the huge number of aliens and the number of indigenes you see in each level.
 * The Assimilator: A rare heroic example. Your Genohunters absorb their enemies' bodies to obtain their DNA and use it to get their attacks and skills.
 * A Winner Is You: The ending? After you destroy the Parasite's bomb and defeat the two bosses guarding it,
 * Beat Them At Their Own Game: You're forced to do this, as you must mutate to get the defeated enemies' attacks and use them against the enemies, if you don't want to complete the game only with your fists. It's still not recommended to use an attack against the enemy that gave you the attack in the first place.
 * Bee-Bee Gun: The necrocyte weapon allows you to throw spiders that chase your enemies and explode when they touch them. OK, they're not bees, but there's not a trope for spiders...
 * Bio Punk
 * Chameleon Camouflage: The Stealth Parasites can do this.
 * Deflector Shield: One of the skills you can get allows you to use it. It makes you invulnerable during the time is turned on, except against lava (you'll still catch fire as normally, although you won't lose health until the shield wears off) and sea water.
 * Dual Boss: The bomb which is about to blow up the planet during the final level is guarded by two identical giant parasites.
 * Earthshattering Kaboom: The Parasite tries this in the final level.
 * Elite Mook: The Genedisruptor Parasites. Appearing only during the two last levels, not only they are significatively larger than any other mook (to the point that their small version is about the same size than standard mooks), but they can take a lot of damage, and their main attack is a beam that drains life fast as hell and confuses your Genohunters (if the affected Genohunter is the one being controlled, it inverts the controls; on non-controlled Genohunters, it makes them start attacking each other).
 * Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke
 * Grimy Water: Not the river water that appears in most levels, but the sea water that appears in levels 9 and 10. It drains life quite fast if you merely touch it, and diving into it causes instant death (in contrast to lava, which takes a few seconds to kill you). Oh, and the shield skill doesn't you protect you from it.
 * Lego Genetics: Your Genohunters are able to use their enemies' DNA to transform their body and acquire their attacks.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Levels 6, 7, and 8. There's also a single Lava Pit in level 5, but it's extremely easy to avoid it in contrast to the ones in later levels.
 * Let's Split Up, Gang!: You're forced to split your four-men party several times. Level 5 forces you to split it into two groups, as at least one of your Genohunters (and it's recommend two) has to stay watching over a tunnel entrance. In level 6, two Genohunters are initially apart from the others, and in levels 9 and 11 each Genohunter starts on his own.
 * Locked Door: Starting from level 7, you'll need to find some coloured disks (either lying on the ground or dropped by enemies) that serve to open the doors with a circle on its top of the same colour.
 * Made of Explodium: Flame Parasites.
 * Man On Fire: Use the mucus attack against your enemies, then the flame weapon. Hilarity Ensues. Your enemies can do the same thing to you if a mucus and a flame parasite stick together, though. Thankfully, such a situation can only happen at the end of level 11.
 * Meat Moss: The towers you have to destroy in several levels? If you watch the initial cutscene, you'll see that the Parasites creates them through dilatations from its tentacles. What means they're made from the same matter as the tentacles.
 * Mini-Mook: A few of these appear, especially at the Parasite's headquarters, where they're supposed to be created. They're basically smaller and weaker versions of the regular enemies.
 * Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: There's a multiplayer mode, but it's kind of tacked on: plain deathmatch that allows you to use your characters from the single-player campaign if you like. Also, finding players is somewhat difficult and the best option is to try to find another player via the Internet protocol. The handful of maps aren't bad (the multi-player maps are medium to large in size and include some of the strangest designs of all the maps in the game), but Evolva multi-player is mostly an afterthought.
 * Monsters Everywhere: See the Zerg Rush entry below.
 * Natural Weapon: All of the weapons you can get. The genohunters' limbs (sometimes the neck or the back) transform each time you select a weapon, as you shoot at the enemies using the transformed limb.
 * Organic Technology: The Parasite is able to create a good number of towers connected among them and a whole army from their tentacles.
 * Outside Context Villain: The Parasite.
 * Overheating: You have unlimited ammo for your attacks once you get them, but you must wait for them to charge again if you use them for too much time.
 * RPG Elements: You must absorb the DNA from your enemies to mutate again and improve your weapons, making DNA something like Experience Points. Besides, you're allowed to customize your characters and choose which attacks and skills you want to improve.
 * Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: The genedisruptor beam allows you to make enemies fight against them. Unfortunately, your enemies can do the same thing.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Levels 9 and 10.
 * Standard Status Effects: The genedisruptor beam, which has two effects: on your party members that you're not controlling at the moment, it makes them attack each other, something like Confusion; on the directly controlled partly member, it inverts the controls.
 * Womb Level: Level 12 takes place mainly inside the Parasite's body.
 * Zerg Rush: Seriously, play this game and you'll be amazed at the great amount of numbers of enemies that attack you at the same time every single battle. Sometimes you may enter in combats against twenty enemies or so.