Evil Genius

"This game truly is evil.."

General: Basically this game exists to let you create your own secret evil lair where you may recruit henchmen or minions to run it. You must plot evil acts of infamy and steal to get money on a world domination map.

Sound - 6.5

The sound in this game is not the best, but it's music is very entertaining. The music is the classic jazzy type you might find in movies like Austin Powers or James Bond. Sometimes I just leave the menu open to listen to it while I am working. It is that cool! Although the MENU music is great, the game music is just plain boring, repetitious, and definately irritating. If they allowed you to switch soundtracks during the game, I would do it in a heartbeat, because there is only one song for the actual game music. When you sound an alarm or attack a person, the music doesn't even pick up. It stays on its normal tone and tempo, being it's boring self. The sound effects are cool, nothing special though. A lady on an amplified microphone will just inform you about certain activities but she just becomes a background task after a while of gameplay. All other sounds are okay but the only sound effect I find the most significant
are the footsteps.

Graphics - 9

The game's graphics are very neat indeed. You may zoom in and zoom out of your base, looking at each little detail there is. Floors were polished by the developers with great effort giving a very clear reflection of every object and person. The characters look just fine too. The thing I found most impressing that had to do with graphics was when you were going to construct a new room. If you did not have that instant build cheat on, the room would look like a blue print. The same thing would follow for objects.

Gameplay - 7

The gameplay was amazing in the beginning of the game. But once you progressed further, you would probably just move onto another game. Like I did. It got boring once you started completing every single act of infamy there was and following objectives got boring once I noticed they were pointless. The tutorial counts as objectives so everytime you start up a new game because you might have done something you didn't in the other, you have to go through the whole tutorial. But hey, its not like the research in this game is a pain too. Actually, it is. Research is basically useless because the objects you get are not as helpful or cool as you would think they are. The only way they would be cool is if you had it in real life. Of course that wont happen, so face the facts... BOO FOR RESEARCH! AI becomes quite annoying after your men are constantly wandering around aimlessly trying to find something to do. If they are not doing that, they are either working peacefully, pretending to be doing something important, or they are looking at walls and scratching their heads or shrugging. Seriously! This is the only reason why research pays off, because your men wont become stupid or ignorant and unloyal. Go ahead and play strip poker I dont care. I have enough money to get more minions anyway.

Overall - 7

The game was fun at first but gradually dies towards the end. It is just like smoking. You are all excited about it. You are having fun in the beginning. You then realize it is starting to suck but then you just try and convince yourself you need to get into the game a little more. Then you suddenly die of massive lung cancer. That has nothing to do with the game and for your sake, I truly hope you do not die of lung cancer from this game. I gave this game a 7 because it deserved it.

Rent or Buy - Rent (In Hawaii I am pretty sure you can only buy)

Rent it when you can so that you can play it for a week, turn it back in and move on to real evil plans. Suggestion - Act of War: Direct Action.

Cure - Play X-Com UFO Defense or AoW:DA

I guarantee you will have an action-packed fun time! But only for about approximately, like... 2 days? And you wouldnt even have the game completed by then. Oh well. Good gaming everyone. And game at midnight! Why? Because it supports my username!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/05