Evil Genius

 PC
User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 150 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 116 out of 150
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 150
  3. Negative: 9 out of 150
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  1. AaronD.
    Jun 19, 2006
    5
    Could've been made better. A simple speed slider could fix a lot.
  2. MarkH.
    Oct 18, 2004
    6
    A user here rated the demo, not the game. Unfortunately the game does not quite work as well as the demo did because of one or two flaws that are apparant only after playing the full version over a longer period of time. The first and major flaw is the pacing of the game. Time and time again you will be forced to wait for your heat levels to go down, or wait to recruit lost minions, or A user here rated the demo, not the game. Unfortunately the game does not quite work as well as the demo did because of one or two flaws that are apparant only after playing the full version over a longer period of time. The first and major flaw is the pacing of the game. Time and time again you will be forced to wait for your heat levels to go down, or wait to recruit lost minions, or wait to uncover evil deeds on the world map, or wait, or wait.....you get the idea. Especially at the beggining, the game is punctuated by short bursts of action followed by lengthy periods of waiting. It took me 15/20 minutes of real time recruit enough minions - only to have over half of them wiped out by some agents. QUE: waiting another 15-20 mins of not doing much while you recruit more staff, and this was while spending the maximum on staff recruitment. Spend less (as your often forced to unless you use the money cheat) and the waiting times can be multiplied by over 4 times that! So you spend more on staff recruting, which means you need to amass more money, which means MORE WAITING as your minions steal from around the world. No matter what you want to do in the game, it always seems to result in you being pointed towards the same situation. WAITING. Want more money for faster recruiting? - WAIT for your minions to steal. Want to commit more acts of evil on the world map? WAIT for your minions to discover them first. Completed som acts of evil? Then you will have generated some heat, too much heat and your base will be overrun with "good" agents. So you WAIT for your heat levels to drop again before you can do anything else. Also the minion AI is not all that good. By design they will stand around doing nothing while your overrun with enemy agents. You HAVE to tell them what to do to EACH and EVERY enemy that wonders into your base, by clicking infividually on the agent. Your minions are incapable of making any smart choices themselves, and sometimes seem incapable of doing what you instruct them to do anyway. Add all this together and the only people who will see the later (and ironically more interesting) game elements will be those with a LOT of patience!!… Expand
  3. rotku
    Jan 31, 2012
    7
    Ever dreamed of bettering James Bond? Well here's your chance. A great original concept which has still not been bettered. If you like simulation games but are looking for something a little different then look no further.
  4. VonCarlsson
    Dec 30, 2010
    5
    Although its humour, and immense set of items to acquire, it get boring very soon. The game is terribly monotonous and you don't feel to be in full command of what is happening. Graphically it's good, given how old it is. Buy it if it's on sale, but not otherwise.
  5. Izoeros
    Apr 26, 2022
    7
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  6. BlakeT.
    Dec 2, 2004
    5
    Genuis of an idea and concept - boring game though. Long, long, long periods with nothing happening. And, when something does happen, you have little control over the game's reaction. You pretty much watch the outcome without making many decisions. Wait for it to hit the bargain bin, which shouldn't be that long of a wait.
  7. LysanderS
    Nov 7, 2009
    7
    Great game, but offset by a slow pace and a number of AI bugs.
  8. victoriah
    Dec 27, 2010
    5
    This would be a great game if the pacing wasn't so slow. It's extremely addictive and the concept is interesting. The game has a humorous style a la Theme Hospital, with funny animations and voice overs. However, the pace is intolerably slow and it takes forever for even the most simple things to be accomplished. It can take 30-40 minutes to complete a single mission as the units youThis would be a great game if the pacing wasn't so slow. It's extremely addictive and the concept is interesting. The game has a humorous style a la Theme Hospital, with funny animations and voice overs. However, the pace is intolerably slow and it takes forever for even the most simple things to be accomplished. It can take 30-40 minutes to complete a single mission as the units you select to send will ever-so-slowly walk to the helicopter point, slowly be flown away, arrive at the destination five minutes later, take part in a mission that takes 5 minutes to complete, and then half of them will die and you will fail the mission anyway.

    This could really have been fixed by a) a simple 'fast forward' type of button that makes everything move faster or b) making the area in which you can build your lair much larger and giving more room types etc so that whilst you're waiting for your minions to complete their missions you can entertain yourself by building things. As it was I got bored after the first couple of hours, since I'd built all the rooms available and didn't have much space left for future rooms, and I had nothing else to do except tag all the agents who came to be killed (which is extremely repetitive) and wait around. Game would be a lot more fun if it was sped up a bit and had a bit more variety. A free form mode would be great as well.    … Expand
  9. Babutto
    Mar 22, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It was really hard for me to give six instead of a high score. But here is my review with as many details as I can squeeze in it without making boring.

    Pros.:
    - Esthetics of the '60s.
    - Amazing world map with a more or less clear division of countries and economic blocks.
    - Missions and their descriptions.
    - Henchmen.
    - Humor (a lot of humor: training, interrogations, quotas, etc.).
    - Different choices during the game.

    Cons.:
    - Serious problems with the engine (glitches, minions stuck, etc.).
    - Complete imbalance of the game play (more below).
    - Closer to the end of the game it's more than boring.
    - Corpses stats decrease problem - they decrease them fast to zero, that makes the game almost unplayable without using the Evil Genius.
    - Moving from one island to another one glitch.
    - Tonn of small issues making the game almost impossible to beat without cheating or wasting much huge amounts of time playing.

    Detailed glitches:
    1. Tourists sometimes come to the island. They are suppoed to relax, not wander around, visit tourist buildings you make for them. Maybe even make money on them. However, only American tourists come, sometimes Chinese. That's an obvious glitch. Hammer countries were banned from travelling (mostly), but what about others?
    One more thing is the construction of the hotels, etc. When SWAT veterans come, they just blow and kill every valet or recreation minion and destroy everything. What's the point of building it? All recreation buildings should be immune to veterans actions. Like they sneak around, and only if they find loot, see the henchmen murdering something, shoot to kill. Or if they reach the main base.

    2, Glitch with the veterans. When they come, they just start killing everyone. I can understand the killing of the military minions, but any random stuff and these folks walk around, carry corpses. Means you MUST kill veterans all the time; otherwise you are risking losing half of your minions or even all of them. It's ridiculous.

    3. When you move to the new island and have tonnes of money (like me), minions keep running and running, attracting more agents and completely blowing the experience of building a new base. The agents should be banned of coming to the new island for some time or until you start some mission. It is obvious they need to obtain some data where the Evil Genius is now and then come there. Also, it may be shown that the Evil Genius made a trap on the old island; that's why countries didn't have a chance to track him down to the new island. It makes sense and can be balanced making all countries 1/4 or 1/3 of Heat at the beginning forcing to wait until it cools down.

    4. That's my favorite.
    Super agents can come to your island all at once. Or one by one. Especially when you are very vulnerable. So, it requires a HUGE amount of time to micromanage everything: world map, minions, corpses, henchmen, agents, super agents. All at the same f****ing time. Super agents cannot come more than two at once. And if they meet they should kind of kill each other. That happens rarely.
    The second problem is that any agent knows where your base is and just FOLLOW THERE, walk-in, and walk without anyone noticing and fighting them.
    Even when you build a work station that prevents agents from coming too often, they come more often. Again, they cannot just come straight to the base. The minions always walk around and bring them in. It's ridiculous. The traps do not work properly, because then your minions carrying corpses will be vulnerable too. To manually switch on and off - it's just stupid. Make a new entrance just with traps? And what's next? Separate freezer? And minions getting dumb after 5 minutes of taking care of trap victims? It's all just a piece of crap.

    5. Sometimes it takes forever to train a diplomat. The stamina of the diplomat or the trainee runs out too fast. The artifacts sometimes do not work. Need to demolish and then cancel demolishing.

    6. Minions can be stuck in the corridor for a long time. Especially carrying many corpses.

    7. Second island. Quicksave glitch. Cannot save. The game just crashes. Need to wait for the autosave. Sometimes it also doesn't work. You cannot save manually. That is stupid.

    Resume:
    1. There should be simple buttons to "all minions remain on the base". Done.
    2. Next - you don't need to bring all the corpses to the freezer. It's stupid. If the agents see the corpse and go back, it increases the heat slightly. So, then you don't need to carry tens of them closer to the end of the game.
    3. Fix agents balance and their arrivals. Sometimes they just arrive straight to your entrance. Especially veterans.

    The game looked cool as an idea. But there is no QC closer to the end. Not at all! It's full of **** and the last mission experience just destroys the whole impression.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

68
#68 Best PC Game of 2004
31
#31 Most Discussed PC Game of 2004
56
#56 Most Shared PC Game of 2004

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 51 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 51
  2. Mixed: 22 out of 51
  3. Negative: 0 out of 51
  1. PC Format
    88
    Everywhere you look there's another cute animation and another cool gadget. Combine this with an addictive research tree and a challenging campaign, and you have yourself a great combination of "Dungeon Keeper" and "Austin Powers" - just not a very long one. [Oct 2004, p.94]
    Read full review
  2. Next Level Gaming
    82
    Now RTS's are generally a little slow for me, but Evil Genius has a few elements that you have to control simultaneously, so you won't have to sit and wait long for something to build or develop.
    Read full review
  3. Game Revolution
    75
    The rare success of style over substance. It has everything an Austin Powers movie offers, but draws it out over twenty hours instead of two. There are sparks of genuine delight that make you wish the game was balanced better.
    Read full review
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