The world map is designed to look like a tabletop map in which minions are
placed into a zone as pawn pieces. It would have been nice if they could be
shuffled between zones as paws as well, but that is not the case. The interface
in the world map is a little awkward – you can not manage the minions in a
region without zooming in on that region. If you then want to move to another
region, even an adjacent one, you need to zoom back out to the overview and then
zoom back in on the next region. Minions can only be moved to a region by
clicking on the bottom of the screen when zoomed on the region, and removed by
clicking at the top, one click per minion moved. And the minions must be moved
back to your base before they can move to the next region. To move ten minions
to the next region, you need to zoom in on the old region, click ten times to
move the minions to your base, zoom back out to the world view, zoom in on the
new region, and then click ten times again to move them into the region. A
laborious process for such a simple and common task, to say the least.
Another thing that the game does not do very well is communicate information
to the player. Far too many times I’d scroll around my base and be surprised to
se a cluster of agents walking down a hall as my minions obliviously walked
around them or I would go to the world map to find that half the minions in a
region had been killed at some point.
 |
| Even minions need to eat. |
Pacing can be an issue in strategy sims – at some points far too much is
going on at once and at others you are forced to sit patiently and watch your
screen while doing nothing. Evil Genius is not immune to these types of pacing
issues. You’ll go through stretches where there’ not much to do as you wait for
the money to trickle in or for your minions to get around to completing a room.
At other times your attempts you’ll find that your heat has gotten a little too
high and your base will be crawling with agents and you’ll be frantically
clicking to set tags and replace fallen minions before half of your base is
blown up. You’re then faced with another slow period as you need to generate the
funds and minions needed to clean up the mess and move forward. This is
especially disheartening when you are close to achieving an objective and must
take a few steps backwards.
It’s not that Evil Genius can’t be fun at times, but it can seem like forever
between those times. This is a game that could have really benefited from the
ability to speed up the game clock, but that’s not an option here. If you like
the pacing of real-time strategy games you may not have the patience for the
lulls in Evil Genius.
One area in which Evil Genius really excels is in presentation. The graphics
do a great job of conveying a 60’s spy movie feel, albeit in a cartoon-like
manner. There are plenty of animations for the interactions between the minions
and the various objects you place in your base and you can zoom in for a
detailed close up look at these at any time. Also, it is fun to see how many of
the objects in the game can serve double-duty as torture devices – the giant
mixer used to make lunch for your minions is also a good way to get a captive to
give up his information. The trap animations, especially when they are used
creatively in different combinations, can also be fun to watch.
A lot of thought went into the objects and the traps available in the game
and the result is that they are the most enjoyable aspect of the game. Evil
Genius makes it more enjoyable to build overly complicated traps and torture
devices than to take over the world.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
74%. It has its enjoyable moments and trap design can be a lot of fun,
but overall the game’s pacing and interface issues can make world domination a
test of patience.
System Requirements: Pentium III 800; 128 MB RAM; 16 MB
Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM; 1.4 GB Hard Drive
Space; Mouse.
« Page 2 of 3
