Evil Genius

To rule the world is your destiny in Evil Genius!

It isn't easy being an evil genius these days: Saddam Hussein is in jail and on trial...OK, so Saddam isn't too bright, but he's certainly on the far side of the evil scale. It's a good thing that the madmen at Elixir Studios have cooked up Evil Genius, a game where eager evildoers can test their mettle, before trying to take over the world.

Evil Genius cherry picks some elements of standard real-time strategy games such as technology trees and resource management, and wraps them in a stylish package somewhere between Austin Powers and James Bond. The game's premise, graphics and audio are silly, and really fun at times, without being too camp. It's a refreshing departure from the dozens of battle-focused real-time strategy games that have relentlessly copied from one another.

You start off with some cash, a few thugs at your disposal, and an island volcano for your secret base. You have to blast away at the mountain, building rooms from sleeping quarters to laboratories, and even training rooms. You'll also need to train your henchmen to upgrade their skills, and along the way, you can recruit some particularly nasty sidekicks with special abilities. Managing your goon squad is a pretty simple task, but it's base defense that will leave you frantic.

Chaos Incorporated

Evil Genius does have larger objectives, but you'll spend most of your time fighting off waves of enemy do-gooders who try to slip into your base. You can send your mercenaries out to dispatch them, but if they're matched against high level agents it's like putting them in a meat grinder. There are more efficient ways of dealing with powerful enemies.

One of the highlights of the game is setting traps for enemy agents, which is both fun and rewarding. All kinds of dastardly devices from spinning blades to pools of toothy piranha fish, to carnivorous plants are available. The traps are nice touch, and building a clever base defense is essential, but overall, the traps are a relatively small part of the overall game.

Running your base efficiently, and protecting it can be difficult enough on its own, but the real meat of the game is the World Domination Map where you send your goons on missions around the world to steal money, nab coveted items, or kidnap certain persons. This takes place in a turn-based mode, and although the map's clean and simple design is good, the interface doesn't really capture the drama involved with shrinking the Eiffel Tower and stealing it for your personal collection.

As the game progresses, your options, evil toys, and fiendish objectives increase. Unfortunately, some of even the more simple tasks can be vague and difficult to achieve. For instance, you have to build a fake research machine and con enemy agents into stealing it from your base. Sounds simple enough, but numerous teams of thieves stole just about everything in my base but the bogus science equipment.

Evil Genius has a sweet retro-fun look to it. The animations are quite good, but overall, don't expect to be wowed by detailed models and lush textures, even if you have a high-end PC. Audio in the game is clear and crisp and the music is excellent highlighting the action with some swinging tunes, but unfortunately it's also pretty sparse.

The concept behind Evil Genius is a great one, but the individual pieces of the game don't balance as well as they could. Even so, if you're looking for a unique strategy game, Evil Genius is a fresh spin on a genre that's become overly standardized.

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