Evil Genius
One of the PC games I'm currently playing is Evil Genius published by Vivendi-Universal. In case you are unfamiliar with it, the basic premise of the game is to build an evil criminal empire and achieve world domination. It's done as a SIMs-like RPG and RTS cross.
The presentation in this game is unique to say the least. The characters and the graphics are very 60's spy-caperish.
As the evil genius in waiting, your job is to build your legions of henchmen to do your bidding. You build your island fortress (inside a mountain of course), and from there send your minions to perform "acts of infamy" around the world. Each of these acts gains you notoriety points (of which you have to collect 500 to win).
As you progress through the game you discover new acts of infamy as well as kidnap targets to earn new levels of minions with different skill sets. Managing the type of minions and their numbers is one of the biggest aspects of the game. You have a limited population limit and your forces need to be balanced since different acts of infamy require different type of minions.
On the "good" side, the powers of justice will send their troops to infiltrate and destroy your operation. You must always keep enough of a force on the island to repel them. If you really irk one of the forces of justice, they'll send their own 007-like agents to shut you down.
I'm really getting into this game. It requires a lot of planning since you only have a limited space in your mountain to excavate the different types of rooms and buy the objects you need. You also have to manage you minions and make sure that you have a balanced force. All of the purchases aren't cheap, so you have to send minions out into the world to siphon money out of the forces of justice and send it back to you. And finally, you need patience because if you try to expand too quickly, the forces of justice will apply too much heat to your operation and bring it down.
I also like this game because it is different. There is nothing else like this game that I know of and this is the type of creativity that should be rewarded in the gaming industry.
I'd give Evil Genius an 8.5 out of 10.
posted by Mike @ 9:52 PM
3 Comments:
This is one title that I'm really wanting to pick up for my own Evil Genius in the family. The hubby and I are still at odds over whether or not an overly precocious almost-9 can figure out how to play, but considering how well she's mastered other games, especially where some strategy is involved (she regularly annihilates her 13 year-old sister at video games), I figure it's worth the effort.
My 9 year old evil genius picked it up very quickly.
You saw little bit's "minions" post ... but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone else that she can handle it. She hits 9 in November, but is honestly smarter than I am by a long shot.
And at least the game would teach her proper management skills for when she finally goes through with her plans to take over the world.
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