Evil Genius

"Fun the first time"

Oh sure. Every game out there lets you be a goody two shoes, a guy working against all odds to SAVE the world, or the universe, or East Orange County, from the forces of villainy. But what if, just maybe, you wanted to tread the dark side once in while? How many games let you do that? I know about one that does.

In these days where so many games are about managing virtual peoples' lives, perhaps a game about managing an organization out to rule the world was inevitable. You play one of three would-be evil masterminds, Maximillian, Shen Yu or Alexis, each with different a different peripheral benefit, sphere of influence and starting right hand man. You have a deserted island where you have to set up an evil headquarters to house minions, keep them entertained and train your general workers into more specialized classes. You also need facilities to hack global security, hold hostages and develop insidious devices. It's not easy being an evil genius, but it sure is fun.

Graphics-7/10
Can't say I was more impressed by the graphics of Evil Genius than I was by those of the average Sims game, but there is a lot going on in your island at any given time.

Audio-7/10
The music is rather effective and somewhat reminiscent of something you might hear in an old James Bond movie. The voice samples are well-acted, but get repetitive after a while. Whenever my guys committed a major crime in America I had to hear about the penguins in Alaska again.

Gameplay-7/10
If I were to actually try to take over the world, I'd be taking a lot of my cues from the tasks required of me to beat this game. The game is basically divided into two parts, with the first requiring you to set up a headquarters, form alliances with other msaterminds, and build up your reputation so that the world will soon learn to fear your name. After this is accomplished, you move your operation to a second island and build another headquarters (with a volcano in the middle, natch!) to actually begin your plans of world domination.

Along the way, your army of loyal minions will grow and evolve to include more specialized and adept members, more infamous assassins and paramilitary nutsos will want to work for you, and the spy federations will start sending their best agents at you. There's a lot of strategy involved, and poorly designing your base and its defenses and not training the proper array of underlings will lead to certain destruction. All in all, it's a great experience, and a great change of pace from being the ones who save the world all the time.

If I have a complaint, it's that the designers went maybe a little too far trying to capture the loyal but mindless behavior of the people who work for evil masterminds. I can't tell you how alarmed I was when my unarmed, weakling minions like valets and scientists would attack exceptional veterans when I put the base on alert, and it got even worse when this would result in the death of three biochemists or diplomats, since it takes forever to replace them. Not to mention how your own minions seem more likely to set off the traps around your base than the secret agents you actually want them to kill. When I got to my second island I simply didn't bother with traps at all, with how many highly-trained minions I'd lost thanks to my own poison gas cubes and giant venus flytraps.

If I have two complaints, the second is that, partially thanks to the deaths that result from said minions dying in your own deathtraps or slide rule jockeys fighting trained soldiers, there are often long periods of time where you're forced to simply wait while new minions are trained to fill the positions you need to launch your next dastardly scheme. Staring at a screen and doing nothing for ten minutes isn't fun.

Replay value-2/10
Too much about Evil Genius stays the same to warrant repated plays through it. The monotonous periods of training, the same old objectives, and one Act of Infamy not seeming any different from any other, watching your own men suffocate in your traps...beat it once.

Overall-7/10
All around, I thought Sierra produced a solid if not exactly stellar piece of gaming here. Who knew being bad could be so good?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/20/05, Updated 03/17/06