Evil Genius

"Enjoyable, though rather niche."

From the now-defunct game company Elixer comes the quirky little game entitled "Evil Genius," where you play a Bond-like villain aspiring to be (surprise!) an Evil Genius who rules over the world with an iron fist. To accomplish this, your aspiring Evil Genius purchases a mountain island with which to build an underground lair from which he or she may direct an army of minions and henchmen to accomplish the goal of world domination. This sounds like a fun premise for a game, so let's see how it stands up. I'm not going to use numbers to rate the individual parts; I find it difficult to translate my personal opinions into mere numbers.

Graphics and Sound -- Simple but creative
Well, the little people who populate/invade your island are not very complex in thier appearance, but the designers were very creative with their actions. When your minion goes to work in the control room, he takes off his hat, if he has one, and puts on a set of headphones. If a minion gets exhausted, he'll get up and stretch for a bit before going to rest up -- unless he's completely exhausted, at which point he'll just collapse on the floor to rest until he can get up again. If you zoom in on a minion, he'll pause for a moment to salute you (the player) to show his loyalty -- or, if his loyalty has waned, you might get to enjoy a brief scene where he reveals his disapproval of you. Different minions also fight differently. The way social and science minions fight is hilarious, betraying their utter lack of combat skill. Basic untrained workers put up a slightly better (though still pitiful) fight, while trained military minions show off their progressively advanced combat skills. And if minions get really bored, they'll walk off to some relatively empty location and take a smoking break.

Your enemies also have a wide variety of animations. Pesky tourists who see something incriminating will enter a panicked frenzy and run around at random. Agents who find something incriminating will pause to take a picture of it to prove it, while thieves who find money or loot items will pause to steal them. Should an agent in a group get killed, his or her partners who find the body will pause to cry over them. Elixer got very creative with all the game's sprites.

Gameplay -- More fun to watch than do
One thing about this game that I really enjoyed was how nothing on the island just happens; there's an animation for everything in this game. When you order a new room, workers will grab some cash, head to the depot for explosives (as you're carving the base into a mountain), place the explosives, and actually set them off. When you order your minions to go into the big world to steal cash and/or undertake a mission, they all run to a depot, board a boat or helicopter, then take off. When minions undertake training, they actually go to a training apparatus and spend some time there to practice and/or learn new things.

Then there's research. Research requires, at bare minimum, a databank, a research machine, one of the game's seven research devices, and, the most elusive of all, some sort of potential to research. Once you have all of these, bored science minions will go around taking notes about things and input those notes into the databank. This initial process can be the most painful and most boring part of the game. If there's anything you can research from that, the option will show up, and you can then order something to be researched for a new item -- a far less painful process than the discovery needed for it.

All this action was so enjoyable (well, besides discovering research potential) that it took me a while to notice that it was more fun to watch the minions work than it was to actually have them work. Sitting back and letting things happen in this game can get very boring at times, and you really need to watch things happen to enjoy them. Some might see it as a plus, others a minus, For me, it's a bit of a minus.

Henchmen are interesting, and they must be, as they're the only people on your island you can directly control besides the Evil Genius, who can only perform administrational tasks. They will never perform the "lower" duties workers, science minions, and social minions perform and never train other minions. At their base, they act as military minions who can call other military minions nearby to follow them and go after a group of soldiers, a super agent, or where ever you think you need them. They also have two special abilities (which must be learned through experience) that help you in your quest for world domination, from super attacks to special attacks to other miscellaneous actions that, if nothing else, help contribute to the game's flavor.

That doesn't even touch upon the game's second play area, the World Domination Screen. Whereas the island is perhaps overloaded with small, amusing actions, the WDS is almost completely devoid of them, making it a rather boring area. Watching the copter pickup and drop off minions is the biggest action you'll get here, and I find this a big disappointment since this is where a huge chunk of the game takes place.

Story/Plot -- Not what this game was meant for.
The plot is decidedly simple in this game, and is best described by the objectives the game hands you throughout your bid for world domination. The only people with backgrounds are the Evil Genius, the henchmen, and the Super Agents, and these background never come into the script -- which, for that matter, is virtually nonexistent.

Replayability -- Yes, but it can get lonely.
This game seems like it has excellent multiplayer potential, but unfortunately Elixer has not bothered to include it. Still, if you enjoyed it the first time, you'll probably enjoy playing it again with a different base, difficulty, and/or avatar, and if you really enjoyed it, there are as of this review at least a few competitions you may be interested it. In addition, there are a number of graphic mods available online you can use to give your game a different appearance to make it look "just right" for your tastes. So yes, this game has decent replayability, but only if you enjoyed playing through it the first time.

Overall -- Enjoyable, if rather niche
For many people, this game is simply not worth considering. For the few that like it, you'll probably enjoy this game for a good while before putting it down, and you'll probably decide to pick it back up later anyway. If you can, play it at a friend's house before buying it to see if you like it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/06