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Evil GeniusExcellent style and ideas cannot make up for serious gameplay issues(8 posts)(8 posts)
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Posted August 01, 2010
I really want to like Evil Genius. It has a lot of great features- the game is loaded with style, game play mechanics are creative and interesting and the premise is both engaging and immersing. But I cannot recommend the game because none of the many great ideas the game have actually work together.
AI is the main killer- not only is it unpredictable and unreliable, it's frequently buggy. There's no way of organizing units, and the operate at their own volition. While this seems like a good idea in theory it rarely works- placing kill tags on enemy agents does not direct enemies to engage in any sort of offensive, they simple file towards the enemy until he/she's dead. Seeing 5 marksmen die from melee attacks filing towards an enemy is infuriating. In the end weaken is the only safe way to take care of enemies and this is not always effective, especially if there are multiple targets.
Traps are another faltering point, in the end they just don't have any use. It seems like a great idea to lace the entrance to a lair with traps, or certain parts of the base, but issues arise because minions as minions so frequently have to go outside, they are constantly passing through traps. Enemy agents can follow minions through the traps without triggering, which is bad enough, but more annoying is when they trigger traps, which usually ends up killing more of your men than of theirs. Then there are times when your minions set off traps, especially if they are damaged, which happens far more often than it should. Against strong foes traps are totally ineffectual, as most agents just destroy the sensors and the traps with guns or feet, forcing you to replace them.
The world screen is also a seemingly good idea that goes terribly wrong. Raiding the world for money and researching events seems like a great idea, but heat ratings are much too unforgiving, and sending enough men away to build up a revenue tends to attract large numbers of agents- managing away teams and defense is much too fine a balance. Away teams also frequently disobey orders, coming out of hiding before agents of justice have left the region, leading to the death of hard to replace specialists without your even knowing. If things get hectic during lair management, which they often do, it's hard to keep up with the world screen, and it can be very irritating to finish dealing with one incursion to find your away teams obliterated by agents of justice.
Again there are a lot of fantastic things about this game, but after more than a few hours of play it's impossible to focus on anything but the things I've mentioned in this review. Management games are hard to get right, and only a few gleam as truly functional, replayable games. Evil Genius is not one of them.
Posted November 01, 2010
I admit that I agree with much of what you've said here,
-The AI is often woeful and it is particularly depressing when your last marksman dies because he got in a fist fight with a ninja
-The traps are often more deadly than they're worth as they result in a large number of casualties amongst your own troops and more often than not get destroyed before they can be of much use anyway
-The world screen can be difficult to manage, particularly when people you really needed die seemingly at random

However, this is a game, and a parody at that, and in my opinion, as a game it is quite successful. Take the minion problem for example, your minions are meant to be bumbling idiots and they succeed spectacularly at this goal (sometimes too spectacularly), but it's funny, it is entertaining, and that's the reason I buy games.

The first time I played EG I felt like you, it annoyed me that my little men died all the time, and that my cunning traps kept getting destroyed, but then I realised, EG is not a game you play to win, it's a game you play for fun, and in this games the fun is the humour inherent in the gameplay. I highly recommend Evil Genius, as long as you're willing to treat it as a game and don't take it too seriously. However I recognise that this may not be what more serious gamers are looking for.

As you can probably tell, I am quite a fan of this genre, so I was wondering, which ones you've enjoyed or would recommend?
Posted November 07, 2010
Although I too have looked around to find a dozen minions standing confused around my pop-up traps, I'm learning that the problems mentioned by the original poster can be avoided - it's all about base design, and after all, that's a big part of what this game is about!

It's true that your minions attack piece-meal when they see a tagged agent, though this is in fitting with the genre. However, that should be sufficient for minor incursions, and for major attacks you should be directing your henchmen (with their ability to call minions to them) to deal with the invaders. On the automatic side, appropriate use of security cameras and alarms will nicely bring a horde of minions to deal with any agents that get too nosy. You're certainly right about the minions' inability to choose their best attack distance, but this is again genre-typical.

Above all, one key to remember is that most agents should be ignored - other than saboteurs, only agents that penetrate to deep, vital parts of your base should be tagged for elimination! Super-Agents, of course, should always be dealt with, but normally by weakening, not outright attack. For the same reason, you may not want your traps right at the entrance - certainly not lethal ones! Traps are very useful in decoy corridors your minions won't use, and in surface huts as well. They allow you to ignore most agents - but distraction and delay is better than causing harm, which leads to heat.

"Hiding" always lasts for two minutes from when you give the order - that's why away teams switch back to other, more dangerous tasks. I've heard that superagents can also cause a "hide" to revert, but haven't noticed that. Of course, minions are meant to be expendable, so losing a team here and there is a cost of doing business.

That being said, I do think the inability to follow important events in the world whlle viewing the base is a significant downfall. All those minions manning the consoles certainly could pop up a warning when an agent appears in a territory your team is in. I like that the game doesn't have to be twitchy, but it takes away enjoyment when I need to keep popping open the world screen every fifteen seconds. But then again, they're just minions.
Posted April 08, 2011
Rather a late reply to your post, I'm afraid I didn't even know you could answer to reviews so my apologies!

I understand the parody the game presents and it is very funny to watch your idiotic minions drop down a fire chute.. the first few times. The big killer is the investment required in each minion rarely matches the payoff- training up a marksman or a playboy can take a long time, putting your other specialists out of action while it happens, so seeing them killed for unfair reasons tired me quickly of their shenanigans. It's a pity many of the other features it promises, like hotel management never quite lifts off either, and some objects like outdoor sentry guns seem to have no applicable purpose whatsoever. Perhaps I just went in with dreams of running a smoothly-oiled underground lair, but these were dreams Evil Genius seems to sell itself on, so I was ultimately disappointed.

Good strategy games akin to Evil Genius... Dungeon Keeper and its sequel are the obvious comparison, two games I tend to prefer over Evil Genius:
- You craft a lot of dungeons, about 25 in all, as opposed to the 2 in Evil Genius
- The issue of "investment" is not as serious, minions spawn and only require basic training, so you never get too attached to them
- I preferred how finances worked as well- dungeons are funded by mining out gold, so it becomes a real battle of resources between competing dungeon keepers, always a lot of fun
- Multiplayer never hurts

I don't know of many other base management games. X-COM has some similarish features, but even that is pretty far removed. I don't think too many exist (Bullfrog are known for such innovations, and were one of my favourite developers)- the end of my review referred to strategy games in general, ranging from your city builders to real time tactics and RTS- all of which have elements borrowed and refitted in this small, eclectic genre.
Posted May 22, 2011
Good points, nitrogenfingers (and of course my reply is late as well!).

I quite enjoyed tweaking the base - it's important to scrap and rebuild, and since you get the money back for everything sold or rooms filled back in, it costs nothing but time. Time, actually, is a key point.

You mention Dungeon Keeper, and this highlights the very different approach to timing in these two games. Evil Genius is a game for the cautious. Wheras in Dungeon Keeper you really do have to race to the gold, to get the mining going before some cursed rival takes what's rightfully yours, Evil Genius rewards the player for building slowly, for avoiding drawing heat before they're ready. Sending out small teams of cheap workers to different World Map locations, not drawing too much attention from any one faction at a time, brings in a slow, comfortable income. Meanwhile one has one's scientists researching the heck out of any interesting items, so that one can build everything possible before making a bold stroke on the World Map and bringing the saboteurs and Super Agents sniffing around.

A deep base, with innocuous rooms and non-lethal traps in the outer ring, runs itself. I only need to intervene for Super Agents, or when I've been particularly naughty and brought the wrath of a faction knocking at my door in the form of soldiers.

I agree the hotels don't really pan out. Well, if one's willing to invest scads in multiple hotels (and there must be more than one, or they don't work at all), perhaps they can help, but they're pricey, inconvenient, require hordes of social minions who are hard to keep happy, and also get blown up by saboteurs, soldiers, and Super Agents quite unnecessarily. I found it easier just to let the tourists wander through my outer base areas. Sure, occasionally one gets stuck and panicy, but they do no significant harm, and one can always knock them on the head quietly if it seems necessary.

I do like the many different dungeon design "scenarios" in Dungeon Keeper - as you say, you get to build far more bases. But as one learns new tech, one does have to renovate extensively in Evil Genius, which makes up for a bit. Replayability is also aided by the many different Henchmen that can be chosen, which operate very differently. Well, I enjoy them both, but being very much a "turtle"-style player, I suppose the "slow as you like" pacing of Evil Genius won me over. That's hardly the sort of thing they'll put in the ads, though ... "Slow-paced action! Lots of painstaking building and optimizing! Perfect for the kids!". :)
Posted June 12, 2012
Evil Genius has always been one of my favorite PC games. I honestly loved the hilarious style and the fact that my minions always came to the island without a brain, however, where the game is lacking in seriousness, it completely makes up for in originality. No one will ever come up with another game where you make your own underground lair, chop up some agents with a huge laser, and create a rocket using only a bunch of monkeys as your scientists. I guess if you came from playing MW3 to EG, it is a huge difference, but if you are looking for laughs over a blown-up vault door and not tears over not getting your MOAB, this is the game for you.
Posted September 12, 2012
I miss a MP mode from it or something else like a big mod to give it more variety and longevity...
Posted November 01, 2012
I have to agree that the minions are a bit thick. I send them to kill an enemy, yet they can't fight anyone who isn't standing still. They see an enemy running straight towards them and start running themselves, nut instead of, say, stopping them, they run straight past them and eventually turn around to chase them. Then I just end up with a massive conga line of minions chasing after them.

That, and the game is too damn slow. I thought it would be a good idea to build a hotel but it took so long I don't know why I bothered. I stopped playing because it was taking hours to get anything done.
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Evil GeniusExcellent style and ideas cannot make up for serious gameplay issues(8 posts)(8 posts)
(8 posts)