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Review: Evil Genius
- Title: Evil Genius
- Developer: Elixir Studios
- Publisher: Vivendi Universal
- Reviewer: Zonk
- Score: 6/10
When loading up Evil Genius for the first time, you'll note that Elixir Studios has learned from past mistakes. The game features a very well crafted tutorial that gets you moving pretty quickly. At important moments the action pauses and full motion video clips of in-game actions are played to illustrate a point. Every basic act in the game, from minion creation to trap setup, is covered by the tutorial movies. While this helps a great deal to understand the basic concepts of the game, the tutorial and glossary quickly outlive their usefulness. The building blocks of the game are explained in detail (almost to the point of annoyance), but where more advanced help would be useful you're left on your own.
The initial experience of Evil Genius will be familiar to anyone who has played Peter Molyneaux's Dungeon Keeper. You utilize a tool to select an area of earth to be excavated. Construction worker minions do the demolitions and then put up finishing touches on a new room. Rooms and corridors make up your hidden base, and each room has a specific purpose. The first room you gain the ability to build is the barracks, which allows you to house and clothe your workers. The more barracks space you have, the more lockers you'll be able to have, and the more minions you can support. A training room with different furniture pieces allows you to transform your construction workers into more specialized forms. A combat dummy trains your construction worker to be a Guard, a lab set up will net you a technician, and a schooldesk will let your humble men be schooled in the ways of social manipulation as a valet. Other room types include a secure vault to house your loot, a security room where minions can monitor your base and interrogate captured snoops, and an opulent office complete with lavish conference table that allows you to host really evil meetings with other supervillains.
Minions are obtained through a simple requisition interface. You just adjust the number of minions you'd like to have, and at a certain cost over a length of time new minions show up on your deserted island. You have a cap on the number of minions you can control that depends on the number of lockers you have in barracks, similar to farms or supply depots from other RTS games. One nice touch that deviates from the norm is that in order to train a construction worker (the base minion) as another minion type, you must already have control over a minion of that type. The existing minion coaches the next unit in the ways of his trade. Minion types build on one another, so you can have a single minion that advances from a simple worker drone, to a suave valet, to a rich swinging playboy over the course of your game. To obtain additional minion types you must embark on raids into the wider world, kidnapping away a representative of the trade to instruct your workers.
These excursions begin relatively early in the game with simple kidnapping operations, but over time the focus of the game begins to move more and more onto the world stage. Minions are sent out from your island to the nations of the world, and the different minion types have varying effects on their host countries, depending on what you ask of them. Each nation has a simple mode set button. "Steal" will have your minions pulling down cash for you, while "Plot" will have your minions figuring out ways to cause mischief. Strongarm minions like guards and mercs net you more cash, while brainy minions like technicians and scientists are better schemers.
The interplay between minions on the world board and the activity in your base is maintained by a specific type of room: the Control Room. In this room there are control panels which must be staffed by minions at your base. Each area of the world requires a certain number of control panels to be staffed in order to get good intel on the area. Staffing these panels as reliably as possible is a constant battle, because workers are very dumb. There is a punch clock system that allows you to dictate how heavily the room must be staffed, but more often than not I ended up with a control room half filled with dazed, sleep starved minions.
One of the types of intel that the control panels collect is how much "heat" you have in any given part of the world. Any activity in a region will raise the heat level, indicating how visible you are to the forces of justice. The higher the heat, the more likely the forces of justice will come looking for you. This is expressed both on the island through snoopy spies and on the world map with tokens indicating agents actively looking for your minions in their home regions. Eventually the small groups of flunkie agents will be replaced by swat teams, military forces, and finally super-spies who require a base full of minions to take down.
This is the point where the game begins to break down. The strategy elements of the island map are easy to follow, and have easy to understand components like troop training, base building, and trap creation. The hard part comes when you have to keep an eye on your base and at the same time watch a flat, almost 2d world map where your minions are causing trouble. The real goals of the game are accomplished on this map in the form of Acts of Infamy. Plotting minions in a region suss out new acts to be performed, which appear on the world map as little flags. Each Act has minion requirements (4 Workers and a Valet, for example), and a timer. You complete the Act by hitting the Go button, sitting back and hoping. There's no interaction or player skill involved, other than a balance of how much heat you already have in the region vs. how many minions you have on site. The Acts usually take quite a while to perform, though this can be alleviated by bringing along more Technicians. Upon completion, you hear a radio or television broadcast giving backstory to what you've just accomplished.
When they're not participating in Acts of Infamy minions on the world map are constantly at risk from agents. Your role becomes that of a nervous clockwatcher as you zip back and forth every minute or so between the island and the world map. If you don't adopt this habit expect to lose a lot of minions. Notification of the presence of agents is extremely subtle, amounting to the map icon lighting up. Even this indicator is predicated on the Control Room being staffed properly. If you are communications impaired you can return to the world map after a few minutes of base building to find your forces abroad have been decimated. It's incredibly frustrating and very confusing when you first encounter the phenomenon, because the tutorial doesn't give you a good handle on what exactly you're doing wrong.
The half finished thought that is the tutorial system is a constant problem, and an earmark of what is wrong with this game. There just wasn't enough clarity put into the presentation of the game. The gameplay is there (in the form of base building and world map management) and the polish is there (in the form of a rich score and nice graphics), but all of the interfaces could use some clarity. Things will happen in the game, like minions deserting your evil empire, and you're not given nearly enough direction regarding how to resolve the issue. It took me a good fifteen minutes of digging to find out how to raise a minion's loyalty. Even then, the way to go about it (demonstrating your evilness to the minions via torture and loot) is cumbersome and difficult to go about on regular basis.
In the end the intriguing potential of this game is put to waste by the cumbersome interface and unclear goals. The gorgeous graphics of the island map and base building portions of the game are squandered, because most of the action in the game happens on a boring 2D world map. Much of this 2D time is spent waiting while your minions invisibly complete tasks, making your role supervisory in nature and kinda boring.
If the Dungeon Keeper style of game is gaming perfection for you and you don't mind sitting around a lot while the game plays for you, this will be your perfect game. Otherwise, I can't recommend this game for anyone other than a hardcore strategy gamer or a troubled youth with a Dr. Evil complex.
Never would of thought a book about Bush could come out so soon after his reelection.
We all know who the evil genius who will rule the US for the next 4 years is.
Actually, I guess he's not exactly a genius.
Well I must be getting more evil. I used to just enslave captured populations in Rome Total War, now I almost always exterminate them cos I like the sound effects.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
When you become an evil overlord
My pics.
What kind of Evil Genius can survive without a Harem O' Hos?!? Where's he suposed to get his inspiration for World Domination? Automatic -5 to whatever rating it's given. Even GTA knew the importance of hos...
Michalangelo Progr
An overabundance of micromanagement and a lack of proper GUI interaction marrs what have could been a classic...
What's wrong with a bit of excess micromanagement? I thought that was a hallmark of a true evil genius?
Does the phrase "I'll deal with him personally!" ring any bells? (spoken in a suitably sinister voice, of course)
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
...That Evil couldn't run on Macintosh?
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
That's because you weren't playing Evil Genius, you were playing Sims 2!
They're not black.... they're just not very bright. ;)
I did try the demo a while back and this article lets me know that my first impression wasn't too far off. As the AC parent mentions, being an evil genius should be fun - not a bunch of waiting and micro-managing. I'd guess that the demo was really not much more than the tutorial with limitations. It never accessed the 2D world part of the game - only the island - but it got quickly boring having to watch for and deal with every invading agent. Neither henchman would pro-actively defend the base. I had to tag every agent. Early on I was tagging them all for killing, but the body bags pile up way too fast - and there just isn't enough space available.
Perhaps it is a sign of how evil I really am that I had more fun tagging my minions for death or not buying bunks so they couldn't sleep (I had quite a few dying of "heart attacks" while training to be guards). Now that was kinda fun.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
In real life evil geniuses are people like Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. In fact, both of these people were on quests to create the perfect doomsday weapon. This game will cause a generation of kids to grow up with similar ambitions. I'm going to stick with Vice City where the violence is on a much smaller scale and hence far less morally reprehensible.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Yeah, well, micro management is evil, after all. But genius..?
Apparently as someone who has spent most of their natural lives working to become and evil genius you're offended by this poster's reckless disregard for the contemplative art of becomming a true evil genius. Makes me think of . . .
"That Dr. Evil. I didn't spend four years in evil medical school to be called Mr., thank you very much.".
More anons posting nitpicking bullshit here . . .
>
> So its the game's fault that you only figured out how to use one device for torture?
Yeah, talk about having the wrong attitude for this game.
The fun part of torture isn't the victim's reaction (let's be honest here, that gets pretty old after the first few hundred times), it's the feeling of... well, you know... that happy giddy evil feeling that comes over you while you're making up your diabolical little mind about which implements of destruction you want to use today.
"Hmm, bamboo splints? Naw, done that. The red-hot tongs? Feh, too middle-ages. The human-sized garlic press? Maybe, but one of my cuter minions and I had garlic bread for lunch with a lovely glass of Merlot, and why spoil the lovely aftertaste with sprayed blood and organ bits? Roll dice to see which limb to burn off with the house-sized magnifying glass? Bah, I got bored of that with ants when I was six... The box that drops rubber hammer on them, once every 10 seconds, for six hours until they get used to it, which is when you switch to a real hammer? Oh, bother... Decisions, decisions, decisions... so much evil to do, so little time..."
Now a truly evil genius would steal it. Or, have one of his henchmen steal it.
My commendations on creating havoc. This pathetic discussion forum will now have four more years to gripe!
h ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Perhaps you would like to check out the fine wares and warez at Villain Supply to further your future evil needs? If you've got the cash, we've got the evil! [TM]
* ( Posted anonymously to avoid those pesky agents who are after my WMDs! Silly federal agents, WMDs are for Evil Overlords! Offers void where legal, further restrictions may apply. See henchmen for details. WMDs may not be shipped to Iraq at this time. By purchasing one of our fine products, you agree to give us control of the world should you ever actually take control of it. This agreement is terminated whenever you are. )
Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
--
But this is the best part, this is when they... START RAPPING! Bwahahaha. "It's The Ledged Of Zelda and it's really rad. Those creatures from Gondorf are pretty bad." That is just a snippet from the rhyming prodigy's in this commercial. I don't really know what Nintendo was thinking when they thought up the idea for portraying their customers as hopeless dorks, but this is by far my favorite Nintendo commercial.
I want to join in the fun, but damned if that "Evil Genius" Bill's getting any money from me just to be able to play a game...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I haven't played a book for years, papercuts are a bitch.