Damn, that's a bunch of tempting titles, but I already have so many RTSes waiting to be played. However the pinball pack is beckoning, it would be lovely to play Pinball Dreams without going through an Amiga emulator. Anyway, nice batch of sale items!

I was just about to ask about that.

It looks like it take A LOT of micromanaging. Is there a difficulty scale? How hard is it in general? I don't mind a slow pace but a lot of empire/civ builders are way too hard for me and the game ends up booting me out five minutes in for being incompetent. :D


On that note EE2, even if it sucks compared to the timeless #1 is a nice pickup and that pinball game has been on my wish list for a while.

Just bought Evil Genius and the Ground Control games. Thinking about getting Sniper Elite, any comments ?

Evil Genius simply rocks!

There's not much micromanaging involved, but it can get a bit tedious when your base is basically swarmed by enemies blowing everything up without relent (and that's not including the time when the game is staged for dropping lots of enemies for a specific mission objective). It'l be tempting to just have your base on Yellow Alert, and simply kill everything with the best weapons you have available, and screw the consequences.

The main downside for Evil Genius is that there is virtually no replayability with the game. The story line, and mission objectives, remain the same regardless of who you play, and once you have completed the game, the novelty will wear off. There's simply not enough variety to justify replaying Evil Genius, unless you just want to try out devious trap combos that, while funny, actually tend to get in the way of the gameplay - you'll probably be too busy having your henchmen and automated defences shoot the enemies, long before they get anywhere near your traps!

Ultimately, it's worth playing - ONCE - but it's better if you can beg, borrow, or steal the game, because the value for money is quite low compared to many other games. In most cases, you're paying to support the developers, but there's no word AT ALL of a sequel or expansion to this game, to promote it's longevity... A real shame. :(

Going to grab Sniper Elite and Evil Genius. I was pretty meh when I played the first EE.

Horrible Horrible. You're supposed to *not* kill them, that way the heat doesn't raise from them 'dissappearing'. Trap systems that tire their mental state, mazes that keep them busy till they go home, or simply have your agents treat them to drinks and games resort style, and they'll go happy and tell their boss about what a wonderful place your island is :D

Of course, some lethal traps can certainly be amusing at times, especially the ones with long trapsequences, they feel awesome :D

I kind of agree with replayability, although I don't think it's necessarily the missions that do that but the fact that the Islands are always the same. it's a shame they aren't somewhat random. And despite that, I replay the game every now and then anyway because the style is enjoyable, I playing around with the traps and trying to think of better base layouts. The henchmen are brilliantly nefarious and hilarious at the same time and always fun to play with. And music is <3

And about Evil Genius II, you're wrong there. They *have* been throwing hints that they're planning an EG2, yay!

With this promo, I have to ask - Is there any chance of Republic: The Revolution coming back to GOG.com?

Since Rebellion owns the rights to, and republished, both Evil Genius and Republic: The Revolution back in 2009, how comes you only have one of these titles in your catelogue at the moment?

Especially since you USED to have Republic: The Revolution on sale here at GOG.com a few months before I was actually able to become a member... I am kicking myself for having missed it, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will comeback sometime soon - although this hope has been going for over three years now!

Please, please, PLEASE can you work on getting this innovative title back on GOG.com, since besides Evil Genius, it is the only other game ever produced by the now defunct Elixir Studios, and was their debut title.

I think that Elixir deserve that much, for their small but invaluable contribution to both the British, and the global, Video Games Industry. It is a shame that their time was so brief, because of the many resources that Indie developers take for granted today were not available to them almost a decade ago.

The fate of Elixir Studios is proof of the detrimental effect that the monopolies of Triple-A studios and their franchises have on the Video Games Industry... Neither of Elixir Studio's games were bad (Republic: The Revolution was their lowest rated game, and still got around 6-7 out of 10) - They were just innovative risk-takers that didn't fit in with the massively hyped franchises of the time.

This was back when all the major publishers were releasing yearly product lists that contained nothing but sequels. Elixir Studios were a breath of fresh air that helped keep many people from abandoning gaming completely out of sheer desperation for originality.

While it is unlikely that we'll see Elixir Studios back any time soon, and Rebellion seems content to sit on these potentially awesome titles and IP, it would be a fitting testament to see BOTH games on GOG.com, and to get a more rounded view of what the studio was capable of.

Hints? Those hints have been around for ages. In the meantime, Rebellion picks up more IP, and continues to focus on the likes of Sniper Elite.

The aim of the game is to try and stop the agents from leaving the island with any heat. Sure, you can reduce your heat if you get social minions to spam a few lone agents, and you leave them alone long enough for them to get off the island, but generally, that does not happen.

Using traps and social minions is one of the more micro-managing intensive methods of the game, because you still need to have a fully-functioning base with heavy traffic around all those traps. The best strategies for this style generally involve having a bas with an inner and outer area, and trying to limit the traffic between the two, because this chokepoint is where you'd have all your traps.

The minions tend to either fall into your own traps, setting them off - or they tend to deactivate them in front of agents, letting the agents through unscathed. With the island sizes being what they are, there isn't much real estate to set up a lot of traps in dead ends for exploring agents to fall to, or to set up the complex resorts to pull off the holiday island charade effectively.

Killing agents is effective at stopping most agents from leaving the island, so that heat isn't gained, but does very little to actually reduce your heat. More importantly, once you've started shooting (which is inevitable in some of the mission objectives), it gets progressively harder to keep your cover and take the entirely stealthy route.

The only real way in which the "not killing them" approach tends to work is if you are prepared to spend massive amounts of time cooling-off between actions, so that agents arrive in drips and drabs. Unfortunately, that tends to mean reducing your minion pool significantly, because you cannot afford to keep paying them while you are cooling off.

Evil Genius is a good game, but it's biggest flaw is the lack of replayability, and the way that many of the best ideas were not implemented to their best advantage. Plus, the incredibly long, single, storyline is a mixed blessing - because the ramifications of earlier objectives have a significant impact on the later ones. You are essentially trying to keep your cover for as long as possible, and the game simply does NOT allow you to get away with this. It's hard to schmooze agents into liking you, and believing you are innocent, when they are busy shooting you in the head!

It's essentially like Dungeon Keeper, but with only a single dungeon, that you must try to keep as long as possible. There's no real moving on to new dungeons to start again with new challenges that have little knowledge that you are coming. In fact, there's a good chance that you may be forced to change to your second island, and get it established, while under the constant threat of whatever heat you had before you left, and it is easy to be overwhelmed before you can even start this second stage. It's certainly NOT a second mission, in any way, shape, or form.

Most people are used to this genre from the point of the hero, obviously, where it is all daring escapes and action-packed shoot-outs. There's normally a chase scene in there too (no such luck in Evil Genius). In essence, this is the final stages of Evil Genius, once the mastermind's cover has been blown. Once that happens, it can't be "unblown" - it's an ugly battle until the end, when the villain either succeeds in "world domination" or is killed.

That makes the several hours of gameplay before these end stages like a very long warm up session to such a climax. Unfortunately, most players will have ended up having the climactic shoot-out long before this point - not only because it's fun, but it's also where all the best gameplay is. Then you end up with the world's longest cinematic "end battle" until it loses all meaning.

I have persevered and completed Evil Genius, but for all it's innovations, all it's fun stuff, it really just isn't that good of a game when taken in it's entirety, unless you happen to have the kind of mind-set that likes moving at the pace of a glacier. A mind-set for games that have an incredibly long build up time, can stave off the urge for action until the last possible moment, and can then deal with the fact that from then on, it's basically a very simple RTS. The mind-set that enjoys building castles just to have the AI try and knock them down - but with only one castle...

Nice promo... but I am surprised there's not a horror / Halloween themed seasonal promotion.

I did it here is a vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkPRvLJmHY

I got into a little bit of trouble

People still talking crap about Judge Dredd? That game is stupid, but so good. It is the definition of mindless entertainment. I think the biggest failing of the game is that it just left me wanting more.

Speaking of Rebellion, wasn't Rogue Trooper made/published by them? Will that ever come out on GOG?

Come on guys - there will be 2 more bond films for sure, so we need mor EVIL GENIUSES! ;)

There'll probably be one soon .

Would someone make up their mind on Dredd!? Does it suck or doesn't it!? I got shit to do! :P