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Real Time Strategy (Games) PC Games (Games)

Review: Evil Genius 197

Posted by Zonk from the doomsday-laser-built-for-peaceful-purposes dept.
The drive to be an evil genius is an easily understandable one. Riches, power, eventual fame, and plenty of minions to order around are just some of the perks of the vocation. Vivendi's Evil Genius (flash required) gives you the opportunity to exercise your lust for worldly power in a seriously stylish way. A rich musical score, tons of polish, and enough dastardly deeds to keep even Dr. Claw happy are the game's high points. An overabundance of micromanagement and a lack of proper GUI interaction marrs what have could been a classic in the strategy genre. Read on for a more in-depth examination of the first real-time strategy game whose tag line could have been "Mwahahahahahahahaha!"
  • Title: Evil Genius
  • Developer: Elixir Studios
  • Publisher: Vivendi Universal
  • Reviewer: Zonk
  • Score: 6/10
The concept of Evil Genius is simple: You're an arch-villain just starting out in your quest for world power after a stint in the slammer. When you start the game you have some spending cash, a couple of mooks, and a henchman. You can choose to control one of three archetypal archvillains. Your options include a Fu Manchu Asian spymaster, a Cruella DeVille-esque dame of disaster, and a Dr. Evil inspired shorty. Each of them has slightly different effects on their minions, but in playing with each of them the difference didn't seem to be drastic. The game follows your journey from obscurity to world-girding superiority. The way to accomplish the goal of ruling the world is to follow the stereotype of villains the world over: Build a Secret Lair. From your den of evil you can send out minions to rob the world blind and perpetuate acts of infamy. As you gain notoriety the world governments become hip to your plans and begin to send agents to stop you. Much of the game's action is an interplay between the base building experience and a risk-like board where you move your minions across the world. The endgame comes when you complete all the goals the game has set for you over a series of chapters, and you gain Real Ultimate Power(tm).

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.

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Review: Evil Genius More

Review: Evil Genius

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  • That was fast (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:21PM (#10738891)
    Never would of thought a book about Bush could come out so soon after his reelection.

  • Well the elections are over (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:23PM (#10738910)
    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.

  • How evil are you? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:23PM (#10738911)
    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.

    • Re:How evil are you? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wasn't that the reason most of us played Lemmings? I used to make a sport out of eliminating as much ground as possible, and getting as many Lemmings as possible to explode on-screen.

    • Re:How evil are you? (Score:5, Funny)

      by brocktune ( 512373 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:32PM (#10738999) Homepage
      I voted for Bush.

      Just as evil, but all I needed was a Diebold machine and a couple hours to kill.

    • Re:How evil are you? (Score:4, Funny)

      by arcanumas ( 646807 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:32PM (#10739008) Homepage
      Ahh, yes. Electronic murders are always fun, though i prefer my own killing machines.


      For example:

      class population:
      def __init__(self,size=None):
      self.size = size # size of population

      def kill(self,howMany=None):
      self.size -= howMany
      print "You just killed " , size ," people"

      earth = population(6000000000)
      earth.kill(2000000000)

      Bwahaha!!!

    • IANAP (P=psychiatrist, psychologist), but here's my theory: games are very often a way for one to consume his/her domination instinct. Clearly, it's a surrogate, there's more satisfaction from dominating real people in real life, but it's still better than nothing. One way of consuming your domination instinct is just being very evil.

      To conclude, I really don't think you're evil. Mr. pointy-hairy doesn't need to play computer games, he is the Satan of the office.

  • Nice idea... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:24PM (#10738921)
    But poor execution.

    There is only so much I can take of seeing the same torture sequences. It's a great idea, but somewhere along the lines they lost the fun appeal - it just isn't there.

    I think too much micro management and work is required by the gamer to get anything out of this game. It's staying on the shelf while I head on back to Tribes Vengance.

    http://www.lansmash.com/ [lansmash.com]

    • Re:Nice idea... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ra5pu7in ( 603513 ) <ra5pu7in@gm a i l . com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:56PM (#10739188) Journal
      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.

      • Red Alert? (Score:5, Informative)

        by zipwow ( 1695 ) <zipwowNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:10PM (#10739283) Homepage Journal
        In the demo, I found myself leaving the base on "Red Alert" so that the minions would be armed, and kill agents on sight. I never quite figured out what the drawback of that would be, surely there is one?

        -Zipwow

        • Re:Red Alert? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Ra5pu7in ( 603513 ) <ra5pu7in@gm a i l . com> on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:35PM (#10739412) Journal
          Aside from listening to the noise of the alarm going on constantly and the body bags piling up, I didn't see a drawback either. It might have affected training negatively or slowed down construction work. At least the agents were never smart enough to grab the briefcases of ill-gotten loot and leave the island (speaking of which, what kind of moronic agent parachutes onto an island with no way off? I had guys wandering around all over the island one time - for what?)
          • From the FAQ [vugames.com]

            Be cautious with the base alert settings - if it is set to red alert, minions will automatically attack all agents; if it is set to yellow, minions will arm themselves, and an armed minion is regarded as more of a threat by the agents.

            If the minion escorting the thief (for interrogation) sees an agent at red alert, he'll abandon the interrogation in favour of attacking the intruder.
        • i foun the control room would be deserted on red alert.

          agents do pick up the loot (someone claimed falsely they didn't in another reply to this)

          after you get a research lab though you can do some pretty neat stuff, like building sentry guns outside. 6 of them and an alert eye to tag agents/super agents keeps everyone out of your base, even john steele, who is considered "overpowered" on the evil genius board. he never even reached my base. what a shame
        • Well, when you hit the Red Alert button everybody drops what they're doing for one. However, usually during a red alert I seem to end up with about 20 or more guys just hanging out around the entrance to my armory. Maybe under an extended Red Alert they would go back to their normal tasks, but it doesn't appear so initially.

      • Security systems (Score:2, Informative)

        by Mr2001 ( 90979 )
        In the full game, you can set up security systems and traps to defend your base automatically, taking a lot of the micromanagement out of it.

        Traps: These are entirely automatic. An enemy agent triggers the trap (by stepping on a pressure tile, interrupting a laser beam, or passing a motion sensor), the trap activates, and the enemy is killed or weakened, depending on your choice of trap. However, your own minions will accidentally activate the traps if they aren't paying close enough attention - i.e. if yo
    • "There is only so much I can take of seeing the same torture sequences."

      So its the games fault that you only figured out how to use one device for torture?

      • Re:Nice idea... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:37PM (#10739423)
        > > There is only so much I can take of seeing the same torture sequences."
        >
        > 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..."

  • Great Game. Some annoyances. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chmarr ( 18662 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:25PM (#10738927)
    Not played it myself, but my roomie thinks its a great game. One downside, and its a very annoying one, is that you need to micromanage, and there's no way of setting up 'macros' to respond to condition changes in the game. Ie, you're in for a LOT Of button clicking.

    I had the same issue with Transport Tycoon all those years ago. Fantastic Game, great cheezy jazz music... the one really annoying downside is that you need to MANUALLY return your vehicles to depot and replace them when they get old and tired. Lots of clicking, especially if you play well beyond the intended length in the game :)
  • Is that it's too bloody hard. I end up with no minions because I'm so evil I kill them all myself :( But anyway, Evil Genius is a great game, and although the genre isn't exactly original, the concept and to some extent the gameplay is. It's also incredibly fun, especially if you like tounge-in-cheek humor, and cartoonish style effects. 87%, well worth a purchase IMHO!

  • My Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jacksonj04 ( 800021 ) <nick@nickjackson.me> on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:28PM (#10738962) Homepage
    When first playing the game, I found it extremely intuitive and easy to play, with challenges later on. There is, however, what seems like a lot of grind to get your minions, loot and complete certain objectives.

    There is also a lot of random, rather bizzare glitches which should have been caught in beta but for some reason weren't (No, they weren't caused by XPSP2). I'm hoping a patch (soon) fixes these and tweaks some balance.

  • Top hundred things to do.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:29PM (#10738971) Homepage
    When you become an evil overlord [eviloverlord.com]

  • So what are we going to do tonight Brain? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lrwx ( 800141 ) * on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:30PM (#10738986)
    Try to take over the world! I'm planning on buying this game when it comes out, main reason is lately I've been tired of always saving the world in a one man against all battle for good. I think the idea of being the villian is great idea once in awhile. I also plan on playing City of Villians as well. It's not like I want to be a bad guy, but killing demon hordes to protect the masses or foiling the dastardly bad guys who are always trying to take over the world has kind of got played out. I think this is a game that I would enjoy to play as much as I enjoy Fable where I can choose to be good or evil. Either way I think this will be a great game to play. Thanks for the review.
    • You might like the old dungeonkeeper games. They're probably 4.99 for both sold in the 'classics' section of many retailers. I just saw the package recently at Micro Center and almost picked it up, until I remembered I have the disc somewhere.

      Its a micro-manage RPG in which you're the evil dungeon lord and the heroes come to kill you. Fun, wacky, challenging, etc.
    • Then get to your local game store of choice, for the game is already out. =)

      However, I like many other players who looked forward eagerly to this game found it riddled with bugs and performance issues. If you rmachine isn't above the current average spec, you're going to run into stuttering, lag, long pauses, and the occasional memory leak that crashes the game. This is a very resource-intensive game.
    • Darn it, that's funny. I guess I love those cartoons, particularly the bill grates joke...

      Mr. Zeus is doing the wild thing here in athens tonight (must have been in north europe all year)
      Lost power three times in ten minutes. (don't ask what floats down the street when it rains *hard* here...).

      I always liked Dungeon Keeper (shame that games developers are usually boringly unimaginative).
      But sadly, the implementation was kindof sucky even on DK 2.

      Boom. Zeus is on a roll this evening.

  • Black and White revisited (Score:5, Insightful)

    by js3 ( 319268 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:31PM (#10738989)
    Just like black and white once you get on the second island it just becomes a game of repetitive tasks.

  • What? No Harem O' Hos?!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Donoho ( 788900 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:31PM (#10738994) Homepage
    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...
    • Since the first thing they'd do is fall in love with the agents and plot against you I can understand the decision to leave them out.

    • Re:What? No Harem O' Hos?!? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:46PM (#10739109)
      Exactly. Where are the hedonistic rewards? Like "Kidnap an american actress and try to make her fall in love with you" and other evil cliches. Sadly, I'm sure these games would have a more 'adult' sense of humor if it wasnt for the game ratings and Walmart censors. A game like this should really be anti-political correctness, it would add a lot, and frankly it needs it. I played the demo and thanked myself for doing so instead of just buying it because it looked funny.
    • Your evil genius get a "bodyguard" of the other sex after reaching a certain notority. Of course this "bodyguard" cannot fight but looks suspiciously, lets say unbodyguardly...

  • Micromanagement. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:32PM (#10739006) Homepage Journal
    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)

    • Re:Micromanagement. (Score:4, Funny)

      by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:35PM (#10739415) Homepage Journal
      More truth than you know..
      Good organizations are founded on uplifting and positive interaction.. a good orginization can carry on with a key component (read, individual) missing or temporarily disabled,

      and an evil company falls apart when a supervisor or figurehead is taken out, because everone at Evil org has been jealously guarding their patch of turf....

      at the facility I work, I maintain a 3 ring notebook with maybe 20 loose pages of the werid technical things I am always doing top of my head, if I worked at a place where I felt the need to protect my very existance I wouldn't have done that

    • true, but isn't that usually just a few brief moments before the Evil Villian falls to the hero? ("famous last words" for Evil Villians)
    • Trouble is, you can't deal with anyone personally. Your Evil Avatar can only kill minions. You can't even off Joe Random in the cell, you have to get one of your minions to kill him.

      And heaven forbid that you take a superagent to be interrogated and think you can leave it for a little while. When the 'interrogation' is complete, the agent is simply let loose, and the interrogating minion goes off on his merry way, leaving you standing there with the rapidly-recovering superagent. One minute later, Jet
  • 1. Why couldn't they make the control room more realistic, looking like Starbucks?

    2. You always need an evil helper, be it a test-tube son or some midget.

    3. If you want to do it, download a demo of "The Political Machine" and pick your favorite side. That works for me.

  • Score (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zevets ( 728720 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:37PM (#10739040) Journal
    I think you gave it too low of a score. The game is really fun, but I think that once you go on the mod sites, you realize how much potential the game has. Frustrating bugs, too much tagging, and the death of minions is too easy. The game has the evil feeling down, and that is worth of a higher score, something like 8.0/10

    The game really shines in its presentation. The little radio segments after the AOIs are priceless, and some of the ideas are just plain funny. The art style is great, and the music is kick ass! Too bad the theme music doesn't play during the game.

    I think this game has a lot of potential, but it really needs some concepts added, like bases run on dummy corporations(the hotel building does not cut it), interactive AOIs, ability to buy off politicians, and other dastardly things. I would also like a true story line that really has some depth. I think having your son come onto the base and plead with you to stop would be priceless. The characters are a little flat, but a little bit of story could really push this game into the stellar category.
    • I agree. It is hardly a bad game, infact is is quite enjoyable for a couple of days. If you reach a point where you don't enjoy playing it anymore STOP!

      6/10 score looks like a grudge score.

      • Re:Score (Score:3, Interesting)

        by arkanes ( 521690 )
        6/10 only looks bad to you because you're used to gamer mags that would give "Triple Insane Paintball Command Quake Engine XXX Extreme" a 7.5. 6/10 is an "eh, it's okay for a while" score, which sounds like exactly what it deserves (and matches my rating after the demo).

        • "6/10 only looks bad to you because you're used to gamer mags that would give "Triple Insane Paintball Command Quake Engine XXX Extreme" a 7.5."

          Come on! Triple Insane Paintball Command Quake Engine XXX Extreme RULEZ! Did you know there's a code for making their bikini tops disappear? And then they're all like, topless and stuff. With like their hooties showing? OMFG! HOOTIES!

          - Lead Developer, Acclaim

        • The demo lost my interest after about 30 minutes; I only put up with it that long, because I read about the game awhile back and thought it sounded pretty interesting. Oh well.

  • Was anyone surprised... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Indy Media Watch ( 823624 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:41PM (#10739079) Homepage
    ...That Evil couldn't run on Macintosh?

  • Dungeon Keeper 1 and/or 2, could you possibly post a comparison of these games together. I have the two older games which work on the same premises. I'd like to know if buying Evil Genius is just going to make me feel like playing a third iteration of DK.
    Or is Evil Genius different enough to warrent as a different game.
    I know they are both Real Time Strategy games, but do they differ like Command and Conquer and Warcraft did?
    • Oops, I didn't read the article I did a search and the case-sensitive was on when I searched for 'keeper'. I'd still like to see a review or two by other people.
    • It's very similar to the DK games, apart from the world domination screen (which i thought felt like the gutted remains of a completely different game that was duct-taped onto the island management part). For a good DK-styled game i found Startopia [arstechnica.com] was a great deal more fun (and as a budget title it's a really good buy now). But you never know, they still might be able to patch EG into a great game, instead of a good one.
    • I found that I actually liked Dungeon Keeper much more than I did Evil Genius. The AI issues with your minions are glaring, and I don't quite recall those in Dungeon Keeper. You also have much less direct control over your minions (in fact, you have none) and the tag system is overly cumbersome.

      Really, if you've already got Dungeon Keeper, go back and play that.

  • Why are all the evil henchmen black? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Groucho ( 1038 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:50PM (#10739142)
    Look at the cast page in the Flash. All the evil henchmen are black - even the Russian one.

  • Dungeon Keeper (Score:4, Informative)

    by DeepHurtn! ( 773713 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @07:55PM (#10739175)
    Read on for a more in-depth examination of the first real-time strategy game whose tag line could have been "Mwahahahahahahahaha!

    What about Dungeon Keeper?

  • 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.
  • It's buggy as all get go, the graphics are horrible, there are tons better strategy games out on the market right now. Why on earth would anyone even bother with this game? Because of it's title.

    Do yourself a favor and forget about it. If you really are curious warez it or wait a couple months for it to drop into the bargain bins of your local store. It's not worth your money or your time.
  • My favourite 'feature' is being able to progress in the game without acquiring all possible items. Items that will not be available later in the game, but are required for its completion.

  • Pretty much in agreement (Score:3, Informative)

    by Derekloffin ( 741455 ) on Friday November 05, 2004 @08:30PM (#10739380)
    It had a strong concept, a good start up, but got the potential got squandered in the final execution.

    It's quite humorous and the tag system had potential as a fairly effective way of controlling things without having to worry about the nity-grity of "you there, minion, go here, confuse this investigator". Sadly, minions still act far too stupidly to the tags, like 5 valets going to confuse 1 guy, and even when they do confuse them, they often just leave them standing around in your base to just recover. Henchmen are nice, but their nasty nack of running into super agents and getting killed without you being any the wiser is really annoying. Lastly, the build system needed some little tweaks here and there to removed frustration (like, if I want to move an object, it should be removed from the collision detection with itself, rooms should be easily expandable or changed to a different type, outdoor structures should be demolishable).

    I seriously agree on the disappointing world scheming interface. It's really dull to sit there watching a dark green circle turn slowly bright green to indicate your progress and not much else. Most often, even when you succeed, you get the same generic news clip that you got for pretty much all the other infamy acts in that region which although humorous the first time, quickly loses it's impact.

    Overall, not a game I'd recommend buying.

  • No, this is not a bug... It enhances the evil.

  • I'm just curious... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by guyjr ( 180613 )
    Why does /. bother with anything related to games? I mean, there are PLENTY of much more detailed sites containing everything you could possibly want to know about any game released in the last 10 or so years... why bother with these reviews? There's no way that the same level of depth or even breadth could be applied here... To me it seems like a lack of focus.

    Or perhaps I'm just an old fogey. (ugh, 30 years old!)
    • I like it. I don't care enough about gaming to frequent any gaming specific site, but I do still like to play a good game the rare times the are made. If once in a blue moon a good game with geek appeal gets released, /. will probably be the only way I hear about it.
  • Villain Supply [villainsupply.com]

    This is where I personally find all of my super evil genius supplies!
  • Here's your opportunity to become an Evil Genius in the real world. We're hiring minions to build our army of killer robots. [overbot.com] Must know C++ and be in Silicon Valley. Game programming experience a plus. Help build America's robot army!

  • Riches, power, eventual fame, and plenty of minions to order around are just some of the perks of the vocation.

    I haven't RTFA. Are they talking about Bush?
  • I'm shocjed that this has been on /. so long yet no-one on the main page mentions the 'L' word :o
  • More info and professional reviews from the top gaming sites to be found at http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/915014.asp [gamerankings.com] The average score is apparently 77%, a good deal higher then the reviewer here, but 70% is where most reviewers seem to place playable but poor games, so that's not saying much.
  • One of my favorite sites, www.villainsupply.com [villainsupply.com] has everything an aspiring evil genius might need, from gear for your henchpeople to lairs to doomsday devices. Absolutely hilarious.
  • I hope everybody gets the point here. (Heck, I hope I'm reading the point correctly!)

    Aside from the obvious reference here, I have an additional problem with games like this. . .

    To play a game of this nature trains people into the wavelength currently held by the Lord of America. The more you spend time playing a game like this, thinking and organizing data in streams which are directed toward control of others through dark methods, including I notice, torture (!), the more those particular synaptic pat
    • I think you're reading too much into it, man. I'm all about evil plots, tanks, guns, minions, death, and destruction in video games. I'm quite anti-war in real life...just like most of the hardcore gamers I know. You know who the people are that are all about Bush and American expansionism? The hardcore Christians and right-wing rednecks who probably won't play a video game like either of the ones you mention but are all about keeping the brown and gay people in line.

      Video games get that shit OUT of yo
      • I think you're reading too much into it, man. I'm all about evil plots, tanks, guns, minions, death, and destruction in video games. I'm quite anti-war in real life...just like most of the hardcore gamers I know. You know who the people are that are all about Bush and American expansionism? The hardcore Christians and right-wing rednecks who probably won't play a video game like either of the ones you mention but are all about keeping the brown and gay people in line.

        Video games get that shit OUT of your s
  • Dug out one for myself and decided to get the other and post them here for everyone else:

    WMV [sierra.com]
    MOV [sierra.com]

  • so where's the Linux version then??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @06:33AM (#10741055)
    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...

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