Evil Genius

Just some quick notes: * Great spy fiction style graphics * Groovy but repetitive music * World map missions aren't much fun, just select a mission and send your minions, wait a couple minutes and see if it worked. Playable (Commandos style?) missions would've been a lot better. * Really, really stupid AI. * Super Agents aren't fun to deal with at all * Interaction with the Agencies could've been much better. Just having squads break in and collect evidence/shoot up the place is kinda lame. * Slow and repetitive gameplay, only "story mode" available with two maps. Final verdict: Give it a try if you like the genre and have some time to waste. If you're not into Dungeon Keeper style games give it a pass.

You are one of 3 supervillains and you have a not so deserted island with a very small mountain in the middle which you are meant to build your superbase. It starts off very fun, as an obvious spoof on 007 and other spy flicks, and simple enough. Core gameplay is like any other building sim, you mark an area, builders/minions build in said area. There are different rooms that serve different purposes, i.e. barracks is for minions to rest, and also allows for more minions to be built. You can build traps and cameras. You can even build a hotel for all the tourists that show up. The way that you make needed money is another neat premise; you send minions all over the world to steal gold for you. Sadly enough, the awesomeness of this premise wears off quick as soon as the shoddy gameplay, horrible AI, and frustrating bugs, start to show. The traps you build in order to hurt or kill enemy agents, will kill your more valuable minions way more often. These minions will then have to be abducted, again, from the world map, before you can train more. One of these minion types are the Technicians, which are very important if you don't want your power plants blowing up often. These idiots can repair technical stuff, but they are too dumb to not die in my traps. Let's examine some annoying bugs. Builders getting stuck by building themselves into a corner can get annoying. The minion limit is bugged as well. I cannot figure out if it is the lockers or the bunkbeds that raise the limits because the limit was jumping around as I was adding stuff to the barracks; it went from 40 to 29 to 30 to 25 back up to 40! No clue why, I wasn't subtracting or moving anything from the rooms. And probably one of the worst issues with this game, NO save feature! You have to wait for autosaves, which seemed to be on a time schedule, or whatever it is, or you have to finish the objective, which are not always so obvious. Like explore island further when there is nothing left to explore

After a short while it becames tedious. The first part is a long tutorial, and that shapes your lair in a way probably different from what you'd want. Nevertheless, the animations are well made, and the game has a few hours of fun to give.

I like Evil Genius, but it takes some work to get to grips with it and it can be very frustrating until you figure out a few tips. I'd strongly recommending glancing through an FAQ first since the manual and in-game hints don't quite give you enough information. The graphics and atmosphere are fantastically done and really fit the theme well. While the graphics aren't cutting edge, the cartoon style doesn't require super high quality anyway. From that point-of-view, even if this game was remade today, I doubt it would look much better. The biggest gameplay problem is the way base-building and world domination work together. You need to work the world domination map in order to get money and you need to keep an eye on the map or the minions you sent out will get killed. At the same time, however, you have to keep an eye on your base or you'll be overrun with agents. The problem is you really need to be able to watch both screens at once. If they made it easier to know what was happening on one screen while looking at the other, or if they had better controls on world domination screen (for example, set it to automatically replace lost minions, or automatically hide when agents appear in the same region, or set it to keep heat below a certain threshold) or better AI on the base-building screen (or at least be able to set zones that will automatically tag agents when the enter them), the gameplay would be much smoother.

Completely aware of the universe it is set on, this game makes tremendous fun of its "laws of nature" while keeping you entertained (and borderline frustrated) with the logistics and inherent complications that come from trying to he an evil overlord of crime.