Evil Genius

aka: Evil Genius: The World Domination Simulation, Xie'e Tiancai
Moby ID: 16192
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Evil Genius is set in the 1960s of James Bond, master-minds, and bad hair cuts; play one of the three available evil geniuses, each with different abilities, all of which have the overall master-plan to rule the world.

To do this, the evil genius must send out minions and henchmen all over the world on secret missions to increase the criminal infamy rating and steal cash to fund operations for secret base, known in-game as the "secret island at an undisclosed location." Operation: World Conquer costs money...a lot of money!

However, the five major world governments are not unaware of the evil genius's evil plotting. They will send agents to the "secret island at an undisclosed location" to gather evidence of the evil genius's misdeeds. Eventually after enough evidence, they will have just cause to send a strike team or worse...send Super Agents to hamper the evil genius's plans of world domination.

After choosing an evil genius, gameplay will fall under the following categories:

World Domination Map

The most dominant 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 the player plots all 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 criminal reputation rating. Successfully accomplishing these missions will increase criminal reputation. The higher the reputation, the more access the player has to other missions, henchmen, and infamy objects that may be stolen.
  • Sending minions and henchmen undercover around the world to steal cash and funds operations. The money will then be sent to the "secret island at an undisclosed location" to be stored at the treasury.
  • Recruit new henchmen. If reputation is high enough, the player may have the option to recruit new henchmen.

Secret Island at an Undisclosed Location Map

Gameplay is primary focused on the secret island base, where it mimics an isometric building simulation game. Here, the player may interact with buildings, minions, and enemy agents. The available actions are as the following:

  • Build a secret base, in it construct facilities and rooms.
  • Build a trap system to guard the base's secrets from enemy agents as well as using it to kill, stun, or interrogate enemy agents.
  • Research new traps, objects, and weapons.

Spellings

  • é‚Ŗę¶å¤©ę‰ - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

117 People (102 developers, 15 thanks) · View all

Lead Artist
Art
Additional Art
Senior Animator
Animation
Additional Animation
Audio Director
Audio
Lead Designer
Design
Executive Designer and Concept
Additional Design
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 30 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 28 ratings with 1 reviews)

What a great gam...where did that !@!%@% bug come from...!?

The Good
Evil Genius is a real-time strategy game where you plan an evil (criminal) mastermind set on creating an ultimate doomsday weapon to bring the world (ie. the forces of good) down to their knees. You may choose 1 out of the 3 available ā€œanti-heroesā€ as your character. Each character possesses a minor difference in bonuses offered, but does not really effect the overall game play.

The game is a rare breed of strategy games that introduces a combination of minor ā€œcity-buildingā€ features (that is constructing your underground base) and also the element of what makes this game ā€œEvil Geniusā€ is the construction of trap systems. The closest game I know that resembles this is Dungeon Keeper. So if you like creating a combination of trap systems to kill or just create havoc for those nosy enemies wandering in your lair then is that type of game.

Graphics
The game introduces fabulous cartoon-like images describing the ā€œJames Bondā€ era of the 1970ā€™s. Most of the animations of your minions, agents, and traps are pretty much smooth. The top-down perspective may be zoomed in and out for a closer look at your evil plans at work. The use of colors in this game is very much commendable, focusing on a lot of bright colors yet still in tune with the 70ā€™s feel. This is especially notable in the menu system/save game, a very artistic approach to the 70ā€™s.

Music
The music here is one of the best compositions I have personally ever heard in a game. Music in most games in my experience feel more like ā€œnoiseā€ in the background. Seriously. Though the in-game (during game play) itself is pretty much average, the ā€œoff-gameā€ music (during the menu/ save-game) really does touch the soul of the better days of Frank Sinatra in the 1970ā€™s. The music really does give that glamorous ballroom Hollywood style kind of music. Two thumbs and toes up for the composition!

Gameplay
Gameplay of Evil Genius refers to your ability as an evil mastermind to create an efficient base to carry out your evil plans for world domination, by recruiting and training different types of minions (and henchmen: a minor hero-type NPC), advancing in technology, sending away teams around the world in missions to steal cash or conduct ā€œacts of infamyā€ missions, all this while eluding the numerous enemy agents that arrive on your island for a look-see. Successful missions carried out by your team, or successful missions carried out by the enemy agents will create heat which warrants tougher types of agents landing on your island, starting from simple investigator agents, to thieves, saboteurs, soldiers and ultimately the feared enemy Super Spy. The world as we know it from an intelligence point of view is divided into 5 major factions. Thus, creating trouble with all the factions at once will warrant 5 times more agents landing on your islandā€¦which isnā€™t a pretty sight considering your outnumbered and outgunned.

Gameplay in this game consists of 2 major areas:

  • Base Construction & Micro Management
  • Political Map/Acts of Infamy. Ad.1. Base Construction & Micro Management
    Most of the gameplay (90%) in this game occurs in this top-down perspective section of the game. Here you can see your entire base, your hero, minions, enemy agents, traps, everything. Base construction itself is divided into 3 major elements:
    [1] Room Planning
    [2] Minion Management
    [3] Trap System Planning Room Planning consists of planning ahead in creating the various different types of rooms and connecting corridors. As there a not so limited space for your underground base, planning rooms and placing such rooms in relation to distance and use is essential in creating an efficient and effective working area. Placement is essential in regard to the security of your base. Creating and placing certain rooms or certain items that generate heat for example should be far from the reach of enemy agents. Creating a power plant generator room near the base entrance is looking for a fireworks show with everyone enjoying it except you. Creating roomā€™s costs money and certain items require electricity. Managing cash and electricity requires constant attention as overspending or a certain power failure at the wrong time will warrant a very difficult existence if not certain death in several minutes (especially if your being attacked by enemy soldiers). Minion Management is your strategy in efficiently using your loyal (and dispensable) work force whom carries out your evil schemes for you. Your minions cannot be directly controlled. The minions work based on the games AI (Artificial Intelligence) which you indirectly control through listing commands. There are several types of minions (each with different uses) in the game which will be unlocked as you progress in overall plot. Recruiting and training minionā€™s costs time and sometimes money. Making them happy is another feat that requires constant attention. Minions (and every character in the game) have statistics that represent their feelings and efficiency: Health, Endurance, Smarts, Attention and Loyalty. Low Health means certain death, passing out is due to Low Endurance, Smarts and Attention effect the ability to notice traps and enter a vegetative state if too low. Low Loyalty will warrant your minions to leave your service. Certain items that may be bought or delivered from missions will help your stabilize all these nasty stats, ensuring an efficient workforce if place strategically to suit your minions needs. Minions themselves are divided into 4 different types: Construction Workers, Military Minions, Social Minions, and Technology Minions. Plus, a non-minion type: Henchmen.
    • Construction Workers are the only minion type that can create rooms for your base, which consists of blowing up a portion of an area you blue-printed and finally creating the room. Construction Workers are the only minions that can be recruited automatically. They can be later trained into the other 3 different minion types.
    • Military Minions (Guards, Mercenaries, Martial Artist, Snipers) are the only minions (in addition to the construction workers) that can attack other agents. Though their use is quite limited as a military force in the game (since usually the tough work is conducted directly by your Henchmen).
    • Social Minions (Valet, Spindoctor, Playboy, Diplomat) are the caretakers of your other minions. They help exhausted or minions in vegetative state to rooms where they can replenish their stats. Valets for example are the only minions that can use fire-extinguishers if fire breaks loose in your base (usually due to trigger happy enemy agents blowing up your furniture). They are also the only minions that can ā€œweakenā€ non-health states of enemy agents.
    • Technology Minions (Technicians, Scientist, Biochemist, Quantum Physicist) are exclusively used to conduct research advancement only in the main gameplay map. They will wander around the base gathering information of items in your base that maybe further researched to discover new better items for your base. Technicians however are the only minion type that can fix damaged items in your base.
    • Henchmen are unique hero-type units which you can directly control. They cannot be killed by enemy agents (except the Super-Spy) where if defeated only fall unconscious. They have different unique abilities which may be unlocked when they gain sufficient experience either by killing enemy agents or participating in successful missions. You start with only one henchmen .As you gain evil reputation, you will be able to carry out missions to recruit new henchmen.
    Trap System Planning is basically your primary and almost only defense against enemy agents from wandering in and out of your base with information youā€™d rather not let them have leaving the island alive. Trap System planning is a tricky business as you have to place it correctly and also link the systems for it to actually work. Trap systems also affect your minions (though usually can detect the traps, will suffer more than often if in the same room with an enemy agent triggering a trap). Balancing between tactical use of different types of traps, linking them into trap-comboā€™s while experimenting with new discovered traps from technology advancement is a continuing trial and error process, greatly effecting your cash, power usage and more than often your minions lives. Ad.2. Political Map/Acts of Infamy.
    Though a minor part of the game, it is however the fundamentally most important, as without accessing it, you cannot progress in the game. The political map may only be accessed after you create a control room. Here, you can send your minions all over the world to infiltrate an enemy region for the 4 purposes types of purposes:
    • Stealing Money opts your minions to steal cash from the selected region where they will automatically send the money to your base depot.
    • Plotting opts your minions to search the area for new Act of Infamy missions, which usually increase your reputation if successful or certain key missions that progress the game.
    • Hiding opts your minions to go into hiding, particularly useful when an enemy agent or Super Spy is present in the region. The minions donā€™t do anything, but it prevents them from getting killed in the political map. Henchmen however cannot be killed in this map.
    • Acts of Infamy Acts of Infamy consists of sending certain types of minions to a region that offers available missions. Each mission has different requirements consisting of a certain number and type of minions to carry out the mission. Each minion (and henchmen) though in the political map have an active skill only usable in the political map. Military Minions are best in stealing money and protecting other minions from attrition when in a mission or discovered by an enemy agent. Social Minions lower ā€œheat ratingsā€ as sending minions tend to warrant attention and heat in the infiltrated region. Technology Minions boosts information in the area, useful for the Plotting feature. Henchmen have multiple skills, thus invaluable in the political map.


    **The Bad**
    The game is very challenging often to the point of frustration. Since you cannot directly control your minions, it is very much irritating to see certain minions act in the way you donā€™t want to. All hell practically breaks loose when your well planned furniture starts blowing up due to irritated trigger happy agents (traps tend to do thatā€¦.hehe). Major Frustration #1
    When agents get nasty, they shoot things. Actually, they shoot (or bash) everything. Your minions, your itemsā€¦everything. Minions die, furniture however blows up. When they blow up, fire spreads. When fire spreads, more things blow up. Next thing you know, your perfectly planned base is fire hazard waiting to happen: Oh, wait. Phew, my valets are doing their job carrying fire extinguishers. Ah, one fire out. Oops, my door just blew up. There goes one valet, going to parking heaven. OK, hey extinguished on fireā€¦.heyā€¦.wait you stupid valet, where you going? There are more fires still thereā€¦.come back here! (Apparently, he has something better to do). Whew, here come his friends with more fire extinguishersā€¦.BOOM! Arrgh, another trap blew upā€¦see you stupid valet, you shouldā€™ve extinguished that #@#!$% fire the first time around! Major Frustration #2
    Oh, noā€¦.here comes a Super Agent! Oh, hellā€¦he (or she) is killing every one in sight. Aaah, all of my 15 Valets are there getting killed and blowing upā€¦.donā€™t you stupid valets see a death trap in front of you? Apparently not. And suddenly I have no valets and wild fire spreading through my base. Super Agents are the source of my anger management in this game. If it werenā€™t for a certain ā€œbugā€ you can exploit in this game, Super Agents are practically impossible to defeat or control. You canā€™t kill them, hell you can barely slow them down. You know that your fist is going to places it isnā€™t supposed to go when you see 3 soldier platoons and at least 2 Super Spies turning your base into a terrifying trail of dead bodies and explosions. Hmmā€¦.and you thought YOU were the bad guy here. And if youā€™re wondering, it only takes 1 Super Spy to destroy your entire base. Sniff. Major Frustration #3
    The military minions in this game are practically almost useless. Most of them (except the snipers) only arm themselves when you turn the yellow or red alert alarm. Which you really donā€™t want to do every single time just to kill one agent. When they do have guns, depending on distance, if too close, they go into melee mode (hello, notice that gun your carrying, idiot?). Major Frustration #4
    Now what is lacking in this game is a ā€œPLEASE KILL ANY AGENT THAT COMES IN THIS ROOMā€ feature, item, or anything. Now seriously, itā€™s a big base. Iā€™m a little pre-occupied right nowā€¦oooh, see that agent carrying a bag of loot from our treasuryā€¦now do I REALLY have to tell you minions that he/she shouldnā€™t be leaving the next room with body parts intact? You have to manually tag agents individually to kill, capture or weaken them. More than often itā€™s irritating especially in populated rooms filled with items. You more than often select an item instead of the enemy agent. They got to get these ā€œlayersā€ in proper priority order. Major Frustration #5
    OK. So half my base blew up. I got over it. What I didnā€™t get over is that you have to manually blue-print the same traps again. Someone give me a ā€œsave blue-printā€ feature already. After blowing up more than 20 times, it does tend to get a little irritating, to manually blue-print the items all over again. Major Frustration #6
    When you create a room that is inaccessible, all of a sudden, enemy agents start showing up everywhere in your baseā€¦without using the front door. What theā€¦? Well, you understood thatā€¦kinda makes senseā€¦prevents ā€œcheatingā€ to a certain point to create such rooms. What IS irritating is if you misplace certain items, which create an inaccessible empty space. This creates the same effect? One time this happened and I was trying to find where in the hell is that room which was inaccessible. Didnā€™t find one. I did eventually find items blocking a certain pathā€¦warranting agents to come in using traps doors anywhere in the base. And you know what happens after thatā€¦ boomā€¦ Boomā€¦ KABOOM!!!. Iā€™m really beginning to hate that sound. Sniff. Minor Frustration #1
    Traps also lack an ā€œarea of effectā€ information feature. Other items have this feature, such as loot, cameras, sirens, sensors, but certain traps donā€™t give that area effect informationā€¦but its just a minor thing actually. Minor Frustration #2
    Someone please notify me when enemy agents are on the political map? Why, so I can send my minions into hiding. Training them really takes timeā€¦especially when my base is exploding half of the time. Stupid Super Spies. Minor Frustration #3
    Creating blueprints for your island hotels is very irritating. You canā€™t seem to create a ā€œwingā€ without first placing the main hotel structure first, which is really important due to the lack of space on the surface level. Isnā€™t this supposed to be called a freakinā€™ blue print you idiot? Minor Frustration #4
    Someone tell me why I canā€™t delete buildings on the surface levelā€¦hmm? ULTIMATE $!@#!$%%! FRUSTRATION
    Ahā€¦there goes my baseā€¦stupid Super Spies. Thank God for save games. Loading saved gameā€¦
    What theā€¦? (suddenly after loading the game, my Evil Genius dies with no particular reason). Odd. Loading quick saveā€¦
    WHAT THEā€¦.? (Repeat previous description). (Blood pressure rising slowly).. Loading autosave 1ā€¦
    WHAT THE Fā€¦? (Repeat previous description) (Blood pressure rising steadily). Loading autosave 2ā€¦
    [Grumbling something nasty your mamma should not hearā€¦] (Blood pressure rising drastically). Loading autosave 3ā€¦
    !$^%!%!^!#$^!#%@#$!%^# Followed by an explosion referring to your monitor after being abruptly violated by a super-speed instinctual move by your (preferably) right foot.

    **The Bottom Line**
    Refer to the "Ultimate Frustration" explanation. At this point, you start wondering whether the Amish were right about technology poisoning humanity...
  • Windows · by Indra was here (20756) · 2007

    Discussion

    Subject By Date
    Evil Genius Online Indra was here (20756) Oct 25, 2014

    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 Sciere

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    Related Sites +

    • Evil Planet - Fan Site
      Designed in the style of the game features a rich in content fan site. This includes detailed descriptions about the game and the makers, screenshots, modding, interviews, downloads, a special Evil Genius wiki and a forum.
    • How evil are you?
      Official website

    Identifiers +

    • MobyGames ID: 16192
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    Contribute

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    Contributors to this Entry

    Game added by Kic'N.

    Macintosh added by Plok. OnLive added by firefang9212.

    Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Sciere, Der.Archivar, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

    Game added January 11, 2005. Last modified February 13, 2024.