Evil Genius 2 Review

Video games are not as popular as superheroes and villains, although they have been dominating pop culture for many years. Rebellion's Evil Genius franchise, which has been around for 17 years, makes a welcome comeback to fill that void. Who would have thought that supervillains could come to their rescue?

Evil Genius 2 World Domination is a combination of defence and lair management. Players will take on the role of one of four Geniuses in order to overthrow the world. The game is full of character from the very beginning. The game's cartoony style is reminiscent of Despicable Me. It also features the absurd James Bond-style villainy, which involves building world-ending Doomsday Devices.

The excellent audio design and writing go hand in hand with the outstanding graphical design. The voices of the villains, super agents, Henchmen and minions are all excellent, with hilarious dialogue and dynamic music. However, there are some limitations to this music. There is too much dialogue between Geniuses in sidequests and the music gets repetitive after a while. It is a little strange to hear Red Ivan speak lines clearly intended for one of the other Geniuses.

Evil Genius's greatest strengths lie in its sheer volume of content and the way it integrates and interacts with other systems. The game has two modes, Sandbox and Campaign. Campaign mode is the best as each villain receives story-specific quests. This adds light role-playing and replayability to the game. Each Genius also has their own main narrative quests. The campaign can be set up to suit your needs. There are also three difficulty levels.

Sandbox mode is a welcome addition, as it allows players to take control of the world in their own way. The campaign's objective remains the same: the world is yours. However, the absence of a campaign's narrative opens up the possibility for emergent storytelling. It's up the players to create their own villainous paths. Genius customization is an opportunity to enhance emergent story telling, but this isn’t a big problem.

Each Geniuse is distinct enough, particularly in Campaign. This warrants multiple playthroughs. You can recruit a lot of Henchmen from all over the world. Each one has their own abilities and visuals. There's an opportunity missed to make Geniuses or Henchmen effect construction and scheming at a larger scale, giving players more options in their playthroughs.

In addition to the four narratives, players have three options for their lair. Each island is unique in its layout, with different challenges such as more diggable areas and multiple floors or defensible chokepoints. With the islands at launch, replayability is unbeatable.

Core loop players will be digging out corridors and placing traps and items, as well as fighting off the Forces of Justice. There are many rooms that can be used for operational necessities like bank vaults and control rooms. They also have armouries and prisons. Although none of these rooms is extraordinary, they offer the player many options for how to design their lair. The interface for room construction could use some improvement to make planning and moving rooms easier.

The corridor layout is as important as the rooms. This is where traps and cameras will be placed in defense of the lair. Corridors are a key component of tower defense games. Players can use their imaginations to place traps or guard posts.

The defenses of the lair are designed to repel the Forces of Justice's ever-present agents. Each of five agencies controls five regions in the world. They will send periodic missions to the lair to inspect, sabotage or storm it. As they challenge the lair’s fortifications, there are a variety of agents. This requires players to be flexible. The situation will get more difficult when Super Agents, which are basically super agents, come knocking.

The Genius cannot operate a lair by himself so players will need to have an army of minions that they can command and destroy. Evil Genius 2 shines in this area, as it has three classes, on top of the standard worker minion: Muscle and Deception, along with four subclasses. Each type plays a vital role and one of many challenges in the game is to assign minions to training programs to make sure their lair runs like a well-oiled machine.

To research new technologies, science minions are required. This is where the game gets even more interesting. The five branches of research are divided into five. One tree is for quest-specific tech and the other four covers global operations, Traps, the Lair and Minions. There are many technologies available, each better than the others. This means there will always be new gadgets and items to discover.

Research is not the only way to find cool and innovative items. Side quests allow players to steal loot from other parts of the world through a variety of strategies and accomplishing specific objectives. The game has a wide variety of loot items that come with crazy and bizarre effects. Who knew that the flying pig existed?

The best thing about EG 2 is the slow, deliberate pace. The game's mechanics and pace allow players to take their time, enjoy the game, and think about it. This allows them to really appreciate the game and make it even more special. While there are times of crisis, particularly when Super Agents appear, it never feels like crisis management takes precedence over the overall management focus of the game.

Even the most brilliant villains can have blind spots, and Evil Genius 2 has plenty of them. The players will be focusing on their isolated island fortress and sending their minions around the globe to create criminal networks and execute heinous schemes. Although it works well, the system is tedious, uninvolved and boring.

The Global Schemes feature fits in the game's deliberate pace, but it doesn't provide much excitement or evolution throughout any playthrough. You can perform schemes by following the basic steps: get resources, click on the launch button, and then wait. All schemes are timers that have passive effects such as earning money, completing goals, or gaining a resource. Global Schemes aren't able to deviate from this structure, and can be more of a chore rather than an engaging part of World Domination.

The management of the lair is also susceptible to some of the game's pitfalls. The Cover Operation room will be one of the main areas of the lair. Here agents can be distracted, and tourists can be conned out of their money. It also happens to be a casino. The casino cannot cover the operation. The Cover Operation feels like an afterthought, given how vast the game is already and how many things there are to steal or discover. Emma, one of the Geniuses is specialized in Deception, but it doesn't appear like she contributes much or enhances the Deception portion of the lair.

The user interface is probably the most problematic part of Evil Genius 2. Although it is functional and easy to use, it can be a bit confusing and difficult to get used too. The UI isn't the best at communicating vital information clearly and efficiently. For example, symbols are used in all rooms. Some of these symbols can be too confusing or complicated to understand the type and function of the room.

These larger issues aside, there are minor graphics glitches and oddities that are not game-breaking. Evil Genius 2's customizable autosave system helped to avoid frustration. Most annoying is the minion AI decision making. It is quite a funny, but frustrating sight to observe that there is a brawl outside of an armoury full guards. But they aren't caring one bit.

The game ran very well performance-wise. This is especially remarkable considering it can be quite busy with many entities and items running simultaneously. The game should run on any system that meets the recommended specifications. Evil Genius 2 also has an excellent options menu that allows you to change and tweak many elements.

Evil Genius 2 World Domination is an enjoyable, solid, and fun game. There's a lot to do and lots of characters. Although Evil Genius 2: World Domination doesn't innovate in features or mechanics, it is a solid strategy game that stands out with its setting and quality. I recommend that you go out and conquer the world in a hilarious, cartoony, and silly way.