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One of my all-time favorite games!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I absolutely love this game and have played it dozens of times always changing my base designs and placement of traps. If you like the Sean Connery James Bond stuff and Austin Powers movies then you will love this game. Everything is a parody of the 60's Bond films from the animations and the voices of the characters, to the music and the dialog (which always makes me laugh).

The game has a "cartoonish" feel to the graphics and animation which makes it even more fun to play. The violence in the game sounds pretty horrific but it's actually very toned down, yes you get to put the Russian in the mixer but he ends up spinning around and around like a crazy windmill. You "torture" your enemies with Michael Jackson moonwalk impressions and by banging loud cymbals together and your evil genius always comes down to the armory to cackle gleefully over their "suffering". You build traps with laughing gas, piranha tanks, and Do-Not-Press buttons which of course your enemies ALWAYS end up pressing, and don't miss the Venus Man Trap which is my personal favorite. The only violent part that I've had a problem with is when people are set on fire, then they run around screaming while they burn to a crisp. It's a little gruesome so I try to avoid fire traps, I always feel too guilty afterwards.

One thing though, this game is mostly about building and resource management. Yes, you have objectives and Acts Of Infamy to complete but you end up watching the clock and moving your minions around, you're not actively involved in the "action" sequences at all. The majority of your time is spent on micromanaging your minions, building rooms, and placing objects inside. It takes time for things to get going but once you have a simple base set up with equipment and traps set then you can really start having fun.

Note: I highly recommend buying the Prima Evil Genius Strategy Guide with this game. You have a ton of traps, artifacts, and objects and the guide lists everything including all of the henchmen, minions, and enemies available and their strengths and weaknesses. I went through each item and added the size of the objects (2x2 sq., etc.) which strangely enough is not listed in the guide, but It's an enormous help when planning the size and layouts of your rooms.

If you're thinking of becoming an evil Genius then...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you've ever pondered becoming that "I want world domination" Evil Genius then this is you're entry level basics/"How-To" manual. It may be the most comical game I've ever played, the animation, graphics, game play and overall plot is excellent. However I've read the other reviews and I agree it is VERY frustrating at times and each time I became frustrated I'd simply start a new game and 60% of the fun is building that perfect evil lair. I find my self spending time doing things that are completely useless to game preogression, but is merely fun and evil. This game will have you laughing and scheming like you've never schemed before. My 8 year old nephew loves this game too, (so it's not THAT hard) but it can be very challenging and have you wanting to toss a mouse from time to time. As explained before you start out at the bottom of the food chain and you've got to build your empire and build up your minions (army, workers and henchmen, etc.). In the process of building the ultimate lair and evil empire you'll have your typical Hero "good-guys" trying to kill you and destroy your empire (that's the frustrating part). As the game progresses you'll find that a vast majority of your time is spent re-building instead of plotting and performing evil acts of infamy (stealing, destroying, kidnapping, party crashing and building up a reputation). If you've got 4-5 hours a day to spend on a game then this is for you, but don't think you'll sit down and breeze through this one, you'll HAVE to deticate many hours to this one. One of my favorites of all time!

Looks Promising

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 17
Date: September 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played the demo and loved it. The hip 70's big band music adds depth to the funky james bond/austin powers surroundings. You play a criminal mastermind and what could be more fun than that? This is a sim game so you have to manage your lair while attempting to accomplish certain specified objectives. There's never a dull moment. This is the sort of game that can envelop and take over your life and turn you into a vegetable sitting there in front of your computer. I can't wait to get it!

good idea, bad gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: December 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The idea behind Evil Genius is much like the idea behind the Dungeon Keeper series: build a base to attract minions and then try to take over the world by crushing the silly forces of good. Unfortunately, the game has way too much micro managing when it comes to the combat system and takes way way too much time. If you liked Dungeon Keeper and Startopia, this game will keep you amused for a few hours before you get fed up and want to strangle your own minions for setting off the bases automated defenses.

great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I wasn't too sure what I would think of Evil Genius. I knew it was a bit like Dungeon Keeper and I still play that game, so i decided to give evil genius a try. I'm hooked! Every game has its little issues that one could complain about for hours but I'm "the glass is half full" kind of guy. The premise of the game is fun, the controls are very easy, the characters poke fun at all the James Bond/Austin Powers ideas. I love sending henchmen out on the world map to steal and plot and especially to pull off Acts of Infamy. There isn't a whole lot of micromanagment which I personally like.

Sometimes the AI of your henchmen can be frustrating (especially when the Soldiers arrive on your island and start shooting your Valets. However, it's not that big of a deal and the rest of the game more than makes up for the few shortcomings.

I especially love the music. It was really well arranged and definately captures the James Bond feel and style. Adding the syncronized divers in the background of the save game screen is priceless!

I highly recommend getting this game as it will provide hours of fun.

Fun at first yet....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: February 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Fun at first yet the gameplay gets tedious.
Good for around twenty hours. Then you realise your just doing the same thing over and over.

You build your base, someone destroys something, you rebuild it, then agents destroy it again.

You'll Love It!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: January 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game - a masterpiece, an achievement - humorous, engaging, and fun - no computer problems from it, runs great on a good machine - try it! You'll easily get your $20 worth.

Evil Genius is possibly the buggiest program since WindowsME

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 36
Date: February 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got Evil Genius from my local retailer, and it seemed like a unique concept, but to say that it has a few bugs is like saying Michael Jackson is only a a little bit white. It seems to install fine, but when you try to play the game, it restarts my PC.

Ok, so I un-installed it, and tried again only to have same problem. I F-Disk and re-install windows and make sure all of my drivers are up-to-date... try again and still same problem. We were told to "wait for the patch", which we patiently did, but still the same issue. The people who were lucky enough to actually get into the game, found a slew of other bugs.

My local retailer would not take the game back due to the "opened software policy" and the folks over at the Vivendi technical boards act as if they could care less, so I guess I am out $30.

I never thought I'd say this about ANY software.... but this makes Windows ME look like a programming masterpiece. I have since used my Evil Genuis cds as a doggie chew-toy, because that's about all it's good for.

Management

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 26
Date: May 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a brilliant game -- conceptually. The problem is squarely with the owner of the company. Somewhere he/she trusted a core developer. You've got great EVERYTHING, art/concepts, everything except programming. You WANT this game to succeed. But game drags and the problem is in the game core. It's irritating to the extreme trying to do anything. The agents move faster than the mouse and I have a 1.6 Ghz machine! They insist that you buy hardware to make up for their bad game core! We can only hope that the game is bought by another company, dumping the boss and his tech friend, and is rewritten in a form that actually works. Or, of course, if you have a 64 meg graphics card, and whatever else the game needs to make up for it's core failures, then you can enjoy it's genius.

HEHE so EVIL

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 21
Date: October 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game makes u hate the good guys ive learned from the demo which was frustrating because not many security features are given but it was awesome to see like 5 agents in your base "sneaking" around to be suddenly surrouned by armed guards and regular workers just swarming the good guys and either capturing them or simply killing them and puttem up in the freezer to decompose (kinda wierd thought that freezers preserved not decomposed ah well a furnace would of been better) well anyway its so fun i suggest u get the demo downloaded(go to ign.com and go to evil genius under shearch and the pop up for the demo download pops up everyonce and a while) later

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