Evil Genius

[Serio]

Yet another "Do you people even remember this game?" thread from Serio. Evil Genius is, in my eyes, an overlooked gem. It's fun, it's far from too serious, and losing can even be entertaining. Imagine Dungeon Keeper, add some cartoon graphics(think Team Fortress 2), and for flavour, just a spoon of James Bond. Voila, Evil Genius. The primary goal is, of course, to dominate the world while avoiding the Forces of Justice, divided into A.N.V.I.L(Asia), P.A.T.R.I.O.T(United States), S.M.A.S.H(Africa, South America, Middle East), H.A.M.M.E.R(Russia), and S.A.B.R.E(Europe, South Africa, Indonesia).

It's far from a game you should play for personal achievement or a challenge. If you need something that doesn't require much planning or thought process, it's good. It was released back in 2004 by Elixir Studios, part of the now defunct Vivendi. In 2005(I think), Elixir disbanded and all rights for the series was transferred to Rebellion. Recently, Rebellion released Evil Genius on Good Old Games, Steam, and Gametap. It gave the community a much needed boost, and resurrected interest in the game for me. In case anyone is interested, here's two screenshots:

http://i26.tinypic.com/2vlp7ip.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/5vrn1j.jpg

Yes, that second one is a messy armoury in the process of being redecorated. All the minions were called there to arm themselves, but they crowded and got stuck.

[MyNameDidntFit]

Evil Genius... an amazing game. I played it an excessive amount, I must say.

It doesn't require much thought, as you say, but the effort in = reward out. Nothing beats a perfectly planned lair that withstands attack after attack after attack after sabotage after attack without so much as breaking a sweat -- all while looking awesome.

The graphics are great too. I remember when TF2 came out my first thoughts were "hey, this looks like Evil Genius".

[Lance]

I Loved Evil Genius - played it ages ago - something fun about just being sadistically evil.

I though M.A.D T.V would be something similar, but so far have been disappointed.

[Serio]

It doesn't require much thought, as you say, but the effort in = reward out. Nothing beats a perfectly planned lair that withstands attack after attack after attack after sabotage after attack without so much as breaking a sweat -- all while looking awesome.

Indeed. I've never been able to get very far onto the second island, primarily because I run out of funds before I'm properly done. And my first island is always hit by the same lack of space. But now that I know most of the rooms, I can properly plan out the lair and avoid getting agents dropping through magic hatches in the floor.

I Loved Evil Genius - played it ages ago - something fun about just being sadistically evil.
Oh it is. Just a shame most of the minions are complete and utter idiots. One of my minions was bringing a prisoner to a cell, but accidentally triggered a trap killing both the minion and the prisoner.

The only downside is that I have the old "Best Seller Series" edition by Sierra, with a somewhat broken SecuROM software that requires both CD's to be in both my drives at the same time.

[Lance]

The only downside is that I have the old "Best Seller Series" edition by Sierra, with a somewhat broken SecuROM software that requires both CD's to be in both my drives at the same time.

Um.... that's definitely a lolfail there. I got mine from Direct2Drive, so no need to worry about silly CDs in drives (since I spilt Wild Turkey over my laptop's drive while it was open I've been driveless"

[MyNameDidntFit]

Indeed. I've never been able to get very far onto the second island, primarily because I run out of funds before I'm properly done. And my first island is always hit by the same lack of space. But now that I know most of the rooms, I can properly plan out the lair and avoid getting agents dropping through magic hatches in the floor.

Personally, I got to the stage of building a D-Day weapon on the second island and... well... my game glitched and the D-Day weapon never completed -- that is to say that I left my PC running the game for a good two days to be sure and it still didn't :(

I might try to find it again soon.

[Jason]

I have this on Steam. Got it a while back for peanuts in one of the sales. It's good fun, but AI issues are a little frustrating. It always struck me as a slightly more modern version of Dungeon Keeper, which remains one of my favourite games ever.