Description
Set in the 1960's of James Bond, master-minds and bad hair cuts; you play one of the 3 available "Evil Geniuses" with the overall master-plan to rule the world.
To do this, you must send your minions and henchmen all over the world on secret missions to increase your criminal infamy rating and steal cash to fund operations for your "secret island at an undisclosed location" (Operation: World Conquer costs money...a lot of money!)
However, the 5 (five) major world governments are not unaware of your evil plotting. They will send agents at your "secret island at an undisclosed location" to gather evidence of your misdeeds. Eventually after enough evidence, they will have just cause to send a strike team or worse...send Super Agents to hamper your plans of ... WORLD DOMINATION!
Gameplay
In
Evil Genius, you can play one of the 3 (three) Masterminds in the game. Each "Evil Genius" has their own traits (advantages and disadvantages) that will effect gameplay (but not the plot).
After choosing the Evil Genius of your liking, gameplay will fall under the following categories:
World Domination Map
The most important feature of the game revolves around the top-down perspective World Domination map. Although it only takes a few minutes at a time to check this feature, it is most important because this is where you plot all your plans of world domination. The World Domination map consists of the following actions:
- Sending minions and henchmen on "Act of Infamy" missions around the world to raise your criminal reputation rating. Successfully accomplishing these missions will increase your criminal reputation. The higher your reputation, the more access you have to other missions, henchmen and infamy object to be stolen;
- Sending minions and henchmen undercover around the world to steal cash and funds for your operations. The money will then be sent to your "secret island at an undisclosed location" to be stored at your treasury;
- Recruit new henchmen. If your reputation is high enough, you may have the option to recruit new henchmen.
Secret Island at an Undisclosed Location Map
This is where most of the gameplay occurs. It's basically an isometric building simulation game in this section, where you can interact with buildings, minions and enemy agents. Overall, the in this section the available actions are as the following:
- Build your secret base and construct facilities and rooms;
- Build a trap system to guard your bases secrets from enemy agents as well as using them to kill, stun or interrogate enemy agents;
- Research new traps, objects and weapons.
Alternate Titles
- "邪恶天才" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
- "Xie'e Tiancai" -- Chinese title
User Reviews
The Press Says
| Game Informer Magazine |
Nov, 2004 |
8.25 out of 10 |
82 |
| PC Action |
Oct 26, 2004 |
82 out of 100 |
82 |
| videogamer.com |
Oct 22, 2004 |
8 out of 10 |
80 |
| Armchair Empire, The |
Sep 29, 2004 |
8 out of 10 |
80 |
| Game Revolution |
Sep 30, 2004 |
B |
75 |
| Netjak |
Jan 08, 2005 |
6.8 out of 10 |
68 |
| UOL Jogos |
Dec 13, 2004 |
  |
60 |
| GameCell UK |
2004 |
6 out of 10 |
60 |
| Computer Gaming World (CGW) |
Dec, 2004 |
 |
50 |
| JeuxVideoPC.com |
Aug 07, 2006 |
8 out of 20 |
40 |
Forums
There are currently no topics for this game.
Trivia
Cannibalism
One of the henchmen you can recruit on the World Domination Map is "The Butcher", located in SE ASIA, specifically on the island of Sumatera, Republic of Indonesia. The Butcher's rap sheet indicates he became a criminal after an encounter with a cannibal.
However, as the time frame of the game is roughly around the 1960's - 1970's, on the island of Sumatera, no cannibals existed.
To date, the only known cannibalism that exists in the republic is practiced by a certain tribe (tribe name withheld) located in the island of Kalimantan better as Borneo to westerners. The practice of cannibalism however in more or less just tribal rituals for certain occasions and not a primary diet. Oddly enough, the people of the tribe itself are extremely polite compared to other tribes in Indonesia and having met some myself I asked what "human flesh" tasted like. One answered "Hot". Similar to dog meat (uh, we eat almost anything that moves around here...hehe).
On additional note, on the island of Sumatera, cannibals did exist but only before the Christianity (Protestants) was spread on the island by the colonial Dutch rule. Ironically, the leading missionary of Christianity in Sumatera, located specifically in North Sumatera, was eaten (boiled first) by local tribes before they wanted to convert! Now that's what you call a martyr! (My great grandfather was tribal chief in North Sumatera, and was also known to be a cannibal...yum)
Other rare cases of cannibalism in Indonesia refer to practitioners of Black Magic.
Intellectual property
Following the merger of
Activision and
Vivendi into
Activision Blizzard in 2008, the intellectual property rights to this title were picked up by
Rebellion.
Information also contributed by
SciereThis entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by
Kic'N 
(4264) on Jan 08, 2005.
