Evil Genius

As I relax here in my all-encompassing black leather swivel chair, absentmindedly petting one of my cats and spitefully flicking large glowing buttons on the central console, I cast my eye over the massive illuminated map on the wall ahead of me---the one with all the blinking lights showing the major cities of the world---and I think about how best to open this review.

An introduction would probably work---so here we go. I'm Doctor Sinister and I have been an evil genius/supervillain since 1997. I am destined to become the ruler of the entire universe and there's nothing any of you can do about it.

OK, now that that's out of the way, I know there are those amongst you wondering what on Earth being an evil genius has to do with military history or Armchair General magazine. Well, allow me to enlighten you. Evil geniuses are the lifeblood of the world's economy and the driving force behind much of the weapons technology developed since the end of the Second World War.

There, I've said it.

How so? Well, without evil geniuses, half of the world's secret service organisations would be redundant. Large parts of the CIA, FBI, M15 and Mossad would be twiddling their thumbs. The world's Special Forces would not nearly be so experienced as they are today and the space program would have stalled in 1965 (professional courtesy forbids me from saying why). In a world without evil geniuses creating new doomsday devices or people working equally hard to try and invent new ways to stop them, technology as a whole would be much less advanced and we wouldn't all be walking around with cell phones.

Evil geniuses are innovative, brilliant, inventive people; they just share one fatal flaw – their insane lust for power. Furthermore, although it is true that your average evil genius often has no direct military experience (like myself), they are able to wield vast sums of money and control large paramilitary organisations from afar without placing themselves in any actual danger.

Yes, evil geniuses are the ULTIMATE Armchair Generals!

But running an organisation dedicated to total world domination can be a trying affair, and as I lean back and close my eyes to listen to the gentle hum of my Command Centre, I recall that I often feel misunderstood and under appreciated by my underlings. Which is why I am pleased to see that Elixir Studios have gone some way to righting these wrongs by releasing their new game, appropriately entitled Evil Genius.

Yes, I'm finally getting to the point---forgive me, like all evil geniuses, I like to talk a lot.

There are lots of games out there extolling the virtues of the military, Special Forces teams or spies, but this is the first game, to my knowledge, to tackle the very real hardships faced by supervillains around the world. Although I dislike competition, this can only be good for the global domination industry as it may see the beginning of a shift in public attitudes towards professionals like myself.

When I first heard of Evil Genius nearly two years ago, I could not wait to get a copy for myself. Fortunately, with the aid of a passing orbital laser satellite, I was able to convince the editors of the Armchair General website to give me a free review copy.

My first impressions on loading the game are that it is a pastiche. Cheesy 60's-style music fills the air and dancing silhouettes cover my screen like the introduction to some second rate Bond film. This immediately puts me in a Bad Mood, and I contemplate ordering some random executions to cheer myself up, but then I enter the Tutorial Mode and things begin to get better.

I am looking down from the sky on a remote island paradise. Waves gently crash onto the beaches and a large mountain sits in the middle of the island. This, it seems, is my training centre---where I will learn how to build my first hidden lair. A helicopter arrives and drops “me" off. My character is a short, fat balding man with a monocle. Although an eyepatch would have been better, I can live with this. A large gentleman with an Afro' haircut is accompanying me. This, it seems, is my first Henchman.

Very shortly, a pleasant young lady is briefing me on how to construct my underground base. She tells me how to control my Minions and how to construct defences to keep enemy agents away. I soon get to grips with the controls and am able to run things myself. But it's a pity for her that this lady knows too much.

Pah! Who needs to read the game manual? This being evil stuff comes naturally to me!

Evil Genius deals with the day-to-day trials and tribulations of being a megalomaniac. You get to construct and run your own base, recruit and train new Minions, and devise dastardly schemes to subjugate the world. Once you enter the game proper, you even get to choose how your own Evil Genius will look. There are three avatars to choose, from but I stick with the fat bald chap. I'm not a woman, and I don't like the look of the Mandarin fellow, but that's just me.

The game is presented in a top-down viewpoint with the ability to scroll in and out and rotate the map using the mouse. Your Evil Genius avatar and any Henchmen at his disposal are also directly controlled with the mouse. Minions however cannot be directly controlled, but simply respond to general orders that are given around your base---such as issuing instructions to build a new room within the mountain base, or hunting down any snooping enemies.

Rooms available from the start include barracks for your Minions, a freezer for storing dead enemy Agents, a strong room for all your loot and a control centre for---well, for conquering the planet. Your control centre can be equipped with consoles and memory banks and manned with suitably trained Minions who will watch over the world and identify any juicy missions for you to undertake. It's almost like a home away from home.

Additional room types and equipment to go within each room are made available as you progress through the game---including traps to stop enemy Agents infiltrating your organisation and training devices to teach your Minions new tasks so they can graduate to higher levels.

Within a few short hours, I'm installing a nuclear power plant in my secret base and running a hotel out on the beach whilst raking in cash from an operation that spans the globe. But I couldn't do any of it without my Minions.

Minions start at a basic level---the worker. Workers build your base, and fill it with exotic machinery when you tell them to, as and when you can afford it. As you progress through the game you can train your basic Minions into Guards, Valets and Diplomats, all of which have unique skills and all of which are vital if your mission of world domination is to succeed.

I soon find that basic workers are expendable---and it's fun to target them for elimination if you find yourself getting bored, as you can soon recruit more. You'd be surprised how often I do this in real life as well. It's a pastime. However, if you want to run things properly, it's best to look after them or they will die from exhaustion or leave your employment through lack of loyalty.

Build a Barracks and equip it with beds (and later, cryogenic chambers) to refresh them, and set them up with a Mess Hall so they can eat. Later on you can buy them pinball machines and widescreen TVs---yes, this game is sometimes a cross between Dungeon Keeper and The Sims. It can be expensive, but worth it in the long run. But none of my own staff better start getting any ideas.

No evil genius would be worth anything without some muscle to back him up, and this game is no exception. Henchmen are the most powerful of your underlings and are able to be controlled directly. Sending Henchmen out on dangerous missions is a surer way of achieving your goals as basic Workers are pretty incompetent at kidnapping people or stealing valuable works of art.

But unlike Minions, Henchmen are irreplaceable. Although more will flock to you with the more notoriety you gain, if your Samurai Swordmaster gets killed, he's gone for good. So keep an eye on that World Map!

The World Map is accessed through the main screen. First impressions are that it's not as nice as my own Status Map in my own War Room, but it's quite functional. Using this map you can dispatch Minions or Henchmen to various world territories to steal and plot in your name. You can even assign them special missions to increase your notoriety.

The aim of the game is to become 100% notorious without losing it all---and to construct an ultimate Doomsday Device to force world governments to bow down to you as their leader. As your control centre grows in size and capability, you'll uncover more acts of infamy that you can undertake. Stealing the Eiffel Tower was one of my favourites, but such acts are bound to get you noticed---and that's when the trouble starts.

As your notoriety increases, so does the “Heat" you generate. The amount of Heat determines the calibre of enemy agents the world's security services will send against you and your base. The more Heat you draw---the stronger the Agent sent until you find yourself up against James Bond types who can cause serious damage to your operation if left unchecked.

To start with, you'll only encounter pathetic investigators, who will parachute in and try to snoop around. Don't let them get away with any photos of incriminating objects (like the 35 dead bodies you have stashed in the freezer) or you'll generate even more Heat. Instead, capture or kill these Agents---but hide the bodies quickly before more of them arrive.

To be frank, this game is HARD. It's actually very nearly impossible to simultaneously build and run your base effectively AND operate out there in the big wide world, which is a shame as one relies very much on the other. More than once I came back from a thirty-second jaunt to the World Domination map to find that my island base was quite literally overrun with enemy Agents and that my very expensive detention centre was on fire. Imbeciles!! Why am I always surrounded by imbeciles?! No-one had thought to trigger the alarm and/or arm my Minions and I became Very Angry, which meant another round of executions once it was all over.

Given that all the enemy Agents are very helpfully tagged in red on the minimap as they run around the island, I wouldn't have thought that it would have taken much extra programming to allow your base to “govern" itself whilst you are not there. Before you “leave" you could simply click a "Kill all Agents" button or an “Interrogate all intruders" switch and you could happily go away to plot without having to worry about what you are going to go back to.

Alternatively, why not have the facility pause the simulation whilst you are issuing orders on the main map? This seems to be a bit of an omission and I often felt like I could have done with slowing the game down a bit whilst things are constantly thrown at you.

Having said this---it's also ADDICTIVE, like all good games are, and very hard to stop playing. It's fun to look at and watch, and the suitably evil music that plays throughout never really begins to grate---for a change. The disembodied female voice that shouts out your every order over the intercom is a nice touch too.

Evil Genius covers many of the issues and dilemmas that any everyday supervillain is likely to encounter, such as: Do you keep plenty of Minions nearby to enhance your base, or send more of them out on nefarious missions? Do you kill enemy Agents, or keep them alive and interrogate them for information? Or should you spend your hard-earned cash on enhancing the control centre, or alternatively buy that nice new shiny laser trap that's just come on the market?

The game manual contains all you need to play the game, as you would expect, but I hardly ever consulted it as the game itself includes not only a Tutorial mode, but also a constant stream of video clips and prompts telling you what's what. You certainly won't be left in the dark, which is just as well given the pressures you will face when you sit in the Big Chair for the first time.

Yes, Evil Genius has a few flaws, and it can subject you to lots of events all at once, but no-one said conquering the world would be easy, or you'd all be doing it. However, I still regard it as an excellent training tool for planning your own takeover, and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has aspirations of this nature---just as long as you remember that I am first in the queue. And so, we come to the crunch.

Developer's Tip - If you want something to be prioritised you need use the Boost Order function of your EG. If you select you EG and then click on a build tag he will walk over and snap his fingers indicating that this is the most important object/room (it should sparkle!). Otherwise yes, building things can seem a little random. The easiest way to avoid undue frustration is to not queue up too many things at once.

Another example, during a power failure, it might have been nice if my Workers had changed their priorities and commenced construction on the new generator plants I had ordered, instead of installing a Gym in their own Barracks.

Developer's Tip - Again - your minions don't have any context of the needs building an item will satisfy - they won't build the cafe quicker if they're hungry either :) The best way is to use your EG to prioritise or locking doors to objects you'd prefer to be built later is another option.

Of course, I arranged immediate executions, but I had to do this in the dark, which was tricky. In addition, I would repeat my comments above regarding Enemy Agents---since they are automatically flagged as red “blips" on your minimap, why isn't there an option to automatically target them for elimination?

Developer's tip - On Red-Alert your minions will shoot to kill. It's a bit drastic though so use it with care. Everything has been left to the player as there's a lot of options available and trying to automatically select the right one is impossible. When selecting an enemy group for termination make sure you use the left-ctrl to tag the entire group - this makes things a bit easier.