11.25.2004

REVIEW - FOR SALE: Evil Lair

This is going to be another one of my sort of fantastically long two-part posts.  Seems that's becoming my new trend.  Don't post anything for a long while, then post two things at once.  Oh well.  Anyways, on with the show.  First, I will be starting with my review of the PC game "Evil Genius", followed by some very useful information to get you started on a real-life evil lair of your own.  Interested?  Read on...

First,The Game...

Evil Genius is not quite like any other game I've played.  It's something like the Sims meets Austin Powers with a dash of the old board game Risk thrown in.  Now, I've never been a big fan of the Sims games. They are like Real Time Strategy games minus the strategy, leaving them... well... nothing, really.  Plus, the micromanagement to the point of telling people when to go to the bathroom is quite frankly annoying.  That said, while Evil Genius resembles a Sims game on many levels, it doesn't really play like one at all.  Aside from your character (the evil genius), and his handful of henchmen, you actually have no direct control over the rest of your army of minions.  Instead, you issue commands for tasks to be completed, and the nearest available minion will run and do your bidding.  This allows you the freedom to issue more commands rather than to babysit all of your little men.  A few construction orders here, some build orders there, some work orders over there, and soon you can sit back and watch your evil base bustle with busy bodies in yellow jumpsuits.  You will occasionaly run into that miserable maggot of a minion who refuses to work and may even try to abandon your evil organization.  Of course, you can then dispatch one of your henchmen to throw him in a holding cell until he changes his mind, or just kill him and recruit a new one.  The choice is yours.  It is, after all, your evil empire...

The game starts out with your evil genius and his solitary henchman landing on a rather empty island, with nothing but a dream to take over the world, and a somewhat sizable wad of cash.  The mountain on the center of the island of course makes a perfect location to begin an underground lair, so you get to work.  You start by hiring up some minions in fashionable yellow jumpsuits.  (Don't ask me, the attire seems to be an evil requirement.  Haven't you ever watched a James Bond movie?) Where they come from, how you hired them, and where did they get the jumpsuits, I don't know.  Nevertheless, they begin showing up on your island clad in their brightly colored outfits, ready to do your bidding.  So you start by issuing orders to hollow out your mountain, creating cooridors and rooms to begin your hidden base.  Your minions start running about, blasting holes out of your mountain, and soon you have the beginnings of your evil empire.  You build a control room, from which to spy on the world.  You construct a generator room to power your base.  You carve out barracks and mess halls and break rooms for your men.  You set up a security center from which to monitor your base, arm your minions, and interrogate intruders.  Yessir, you have quite the little evil base now.  Except now you're out of money.  Now what?

Enter the World Domination view.  From here, you are presented a map of the world, with all the different nations nicely color coded for your convenience.  Using this map, you can send your minions and henchmen out to different parts of the world to steal and plot for you.  A well staffed control room back at your base is a must, as it reveals important information about the different coutries around the world, such as how much money you can steal from specific regions, as well as how strong their military presence there is.  Sending a fair number of minions around the world to steal for you will keep the cash flowing in, enabling you to build your base even larger.  "My base is plenty large already", you may be thinking, "how do I take over the world already?"  Fear not, for your global conquest is only beginning.  The world domination map has a meter on the bottom measuring your notoriety.  See how it's really low right now, like in the near vicinity of zero?  Now that certainly won't do for an evil genius.  You do want to be notorious, now don't you?  Well, if not, then I suggest you are in the wrong business my friend.  The rest of us will plot and scheme and carry out various acts of notoriety against the world to increase our infamy.  It is equally important to send your men out to plot as it is to steal.  Plotting uncovers opportunities to perform devious acts around the globe - kidnapping people (and monkeys), stealing valuable artifacts (or buildings... like the Eiffel Tower...), or just causing general disruption and mayhem (like dragging massive iceburgs off from Antarctica into major naval shipping lanes to disrupt traffic).  As your minions successfully complete these (sometimes ridiculous) acts, you gain more notoriety, putting you one step closer to becoming a global threat.  But watch out, as your notoriety increases, so does your heat...

So now you've had a bit of fun at the expense of the world.  Time to check back into your base.  You've decorated your lair with precious objects stolen from around the world.  You've increased your gold reserves dramatically.  You've even interrogated prisoners you've kidnapped to teach your minions new carrers in military, social, or science fields.  Oh, and your base is also swarming with secret agents now.  What happened here?  Where did they all come from?  Well, while you were commiting devious acts around the world and increasing your notoriety, your "heat" also went up.  If you pick on a particular nation too frequently, well, they get a little upset about it, and your heat rating will increase.  So they start sending spys and secret agents to your base to investigate, sabotage, or steal their goods back from you.  As your heat rating increases, they will send more agents with increasing skill to your island to generally cause you trouble.  Careful management of your minions on the world domination map can keep a country from waging an all-out war on your little island, but no matter what you do, some number of unwelcome visitors from around the world will continue to invade your base.  What is an evil mastermind to do?  Traps, of course.  Lots and lots of traps.

Traps are by far the highlight of the game.  As you train scientists to work for you, they will research new technologies that allow you to build new objects, rooms, and also many, many traps.  Now, you could occupy your henchmen and minions with playing doorman and standing around the entrance of your lair like a bunch of bouncers, but most of your minions are really lousy fighters, and they'd be far more useful doing something else.  Not to mention traps are infinitely more fun to watch.  You can quickly turn the entrance of your base into a cooridor filled with sensors, pressure pads, trap doors, pirhanna tanks, gas chambers, flame throwers... the list goes on.  With a little practice, you can even learn to string this series of traps together, throwing its victims from one trap into the next in a veritable obstacle course of DOOM!  MUHAHAHA!!!  *ahem.*  Well.  At any rate, traps are good, and watching enemy agents (or your own minions... hehehe...) fall victim to them again and again just never seems to get old.

From here, you are now poised to take over the world.  But first, you will need a bigger island.  Why?  Well, simple.  Your current island doesn't have a big volcano in the middle.  Well, you asked a silly question...  Anyways, so you give the order to pack up your base, all your minions scurry onto your boat, and you set sail for your new home. You soon arrive at your new, larger island, complete with volcano, and you get to start all over building a new base.  This is actually a good thing, as it gives you opportunity to correct all the design flaws you discovered in your first base, and you have more room to work with now too.  And hey, there's also a volcano in the middle now.  Once you've settled in to your new home, you can steal plans, blueprints, and kidnap scientists from around the world to devise the all important Doomsday Weapon, as you're hardly an evil genius without one.  Then it's time to convert your volcanic core into a missile silo (see?  I told you the volcano bit was important...) and take the world hostage! MUHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! *Cue evil music of doom*

So here's the summary...  (What do you mean, "finally"?)  

Graphics: 10/10  Bright, colorful, and very reminiscient of an Austin Powers movie.  Also the character animations flow very well.  If you've played other Sims games, you'll know what I mean, where the characters kind of jerk around when switching from one task to another as they change animation sequences.  You get none of that with Evil Genius.

Sound: 10/10  An excellent and very fitting soundtrack that sounds like it's right out of a James bond movie.  I liked it so much I had to track down the MP3's so I could take Evil Genius background music with me wherever I go. ;-)

Gameplay: 8/10  A well done modification on a Sims game, it removes the annoyances of micromanagement, while still making you feel in control through issuing orders. You obtain new units and research new items throughout the entire game, keeping the gameplay fresh with a constant supply of new objects to toy with.  Specific mission objectives also help to give the general purpose of world domination a little direction, while still allowing you the leeway to wreak havoc on the world or just expand your base at your leisure.  Switching from your evil base to the world domination mode is a little disjointed, and the two modes could possibly link together a little better, but being able to switch between two modes of play does help to keep the game from getting monotonous.

Ingenuity: 9/10  While the Sims style game is nothing new, the control over the units in Evil Genius is different, and my opinion, far better.  Well, unless you like micromanagement to the nth level, I guess.  The method of issuing commands really makes you feel like you are just sitting there with a screen overlooking your base telling people what to do, which I suppose really was the point, wasn't it?  The premise of the game itself is also sheer brilliance.  I've never played anything like it, yet at the same time practically none of the content in it is really original, as you will find about every cliche from every super-spy movie ever somewhere in the game.  This game is a must have for any James Bond or Austin Powers fan.  Plus, you get to play the villian in this game, which I think is far too much of a rarity in games today.

Replay Value: 8/10  First, let me say the traps never get old.  Never.  I could watch that all day.  And I have, too.  With so many traps, and so many different ways to arrange them, the possibilities are endless...  Traps aside though, the game still has strong replay value.  From redesigning your base layout, to refining your tactics for global domination, there's plenty to keep you playing.  Also, there are three different evil geniuses you can choose from to take over the world, and as the game progresses you can pick up a variety of different henchmen to work for you, so the combinations from start to finish are pretty numerous as well, allowing for a different experience each time through the game.

OVERALL: 9/10  There is one major reason I did not give this game a perfect score.  I'm not sure if this was just a problem on my install for some reason, or if anybody else even has this same problem, so I'm hesitant to speak too much on its severity.  But the in-game help menu would NOT work for me. It would display the text all skewed way off the screen, making it pretty much useless.  Again, maybe just a problem on my install, and also probably quite easily fixed with a patch if it is in fact a broader problem.  Other than that, it's a great game.

Next... THE WORLD!!!

Inspired by your time with "Evil Genius"?  I was.  That's when I stumbled across this site: 20th Century Castles.  That's right.  Retired missile silos for sale.  Now they're advertised towards the paranoid agoraphobic sort as uber-bombshelters, but it doesn't take the most creative evil genius to think that a retired missile silo would be the perfect location for a not-so-retired missile silo.  Now, any crazy individual reading this with $1.5 million to spare, don't even think about that Titan I site in Denver CO, that sucker is SO mine.  Well, once I manage to scrounge up my own $1.5 million, anyways... (My PayPal link, anyone?)  It's on 210 acres of land.  There's 45,000 square feet of underground floorspace.  Three missile silos.  What more could an aspiring evil genius ask for?  I could build a legitimate business enterprise topside on the 210 acres.  Maybe a children's hospital.  I mean, what kind of heartless government would storm a children's hospital, right?  Then, with 45,000 square feet underground and three separate missile silos, I'd have all the space I'd need to conduct my evil scheming and plotting.  A half mile of tunnels is also more than adequate space for a sufficient number of traps to discourage unwanted government visitors or in-laws from dropping by.  Also, being a mere 20 minutes away from a major metropolitan area will make it a small matter to tap into global communications networks, and an international airport also in the vicinity will make getting my undercover operatives around the world a piece of cake.  To top it off, a lot of these silos have leftover yet still working equipment from when they were still operating military sites, which makes getting an operating control room that much easier.  Now I just need to find somewhere to order yellow jumpsuits in bulk...