Allan Hamilton
Developer: Elixir | Publisher: VU Games | Genre: Strategy | ESRB: Teen | ETA: Out Now!
Republic: The Revolution was in my opinion an underrated game, well I never actually played it, but I was told it was. Elixir Studios, the creators of that unplayed gem have been working hard on their next release, the aptly titled, Evil Genius!
Similar to Bullfrogs very successful game, Dungeon Keeper 2, you play as the title suggests an evil genius. From the beginning you're taught the idea "Its Good to Be Bad" and that never lets up. In short you ultimate goal is to create a huge underground lair, train henchmen and take on the world. Not forgetting those big baddie clichés of a doomsday device and top 007 type agents trying to stop you. This time however you must make sure they don't succeed.
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Gameplay
Before you fully begin you will need to create your very own evil Genius. This is done by using a preset choice of 3 preset geniuses’. There is no actually difference in the 3 apart from with henchmen you start with. Like most games of this type, you're given a nice tutorial level which smoothly guides you, and makes that all important learning curve less Steep. Once you've completed that easy bit, the game really starts and once the tutorial is out of the way, you're pretty much on your own. This isn’t a bad thing as the pace this game runs at means its best to Think for yourself rather than follow more tutorial orders.
Construction of your base is pretty similar to Dungeon Keeper 2 in Fact, as you need to dig out walls to create rooms (as it’s all underground). This is done with some grace as you don't have scores of Minions digging with shovels. A small animated scaffold framework appears around the land you want dug out and your minions do their stuff. The scaffold disappears to reveal a beautifully polish empty room to work on. Orders are issued in a different way than that of other games. Instead of simply clicking on rocks to dig or rooms to build, you issue little tagged orders. When you instruct a room to be dug out, a small "dog tag" floats above it. This is your command panel and can control what you want to happen to anything. You can apply these tags to people, objects or walls and each has its own effect. You can pause/resume work, destroy objects or issue kill orders (explained later).
The ordering and placement of items for your lair is also different. In previous games you would select what you would like, a chair perhaps and place it real time in your base. Here you place an order but a "ghost" of your desired object appears first with the tag. Your minions (your basic workers, like DK2's imps) will first fetch money in briefcases, take it to the store, buy the item, carry it back in a box then unpack. This realistic(ish) approach is quite a fresh look at an old system. You now have to think "if I buy that now I will have to wait for x amount of time and use x amount of minions" it all adds up. Each purchase takes minions away from other tasks, however more often than not, your minions are bored and once you've build or ordered something, they just stroll around like lost sheep. So you will need to take care of their needs. This is done via the rest room or mess hall. If you have bought yourself an armoury you can get minions to arm themselves with basic pistols, in case of agent attack! Early on you’re told that your minions will only attack an enemy if tagged, I found this somewhat annoying as I had to find the enemy tag them then hope some minion sees them, as you can’t control individual minions. You can place security cameras to spot these intruders but all seems too easy. You an evil genius with a big powerful lair and the enemy can just stroll in undetected. You are given 3 alerts states, Green, yellow and red. As you can imagine, green is calm/stand down, yellow is arm yourselves and red is PANICK, shoot anything that moves. You not only must you keep your base in tip top condition but you become your own bodyguard in the process. I found most of the time I left my base in red alert so all enemy intruders would be attacked. You can also as mentioned earlier select kill tags. These tags force your minions or bodyguards to attack the tagged person. Even if its one of your own men. You can issue a few sub orders. Kill, knock out or a mind control, used later in the game.
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Depending on which evil genius you choose, you can have access to various bodyguards or a henchman as the game calls it. These are like those characters you see in various 007 movies, odd job characters such as, Jaws etc… that hold special abilities. Although they can die they have a number of extra lives but they are pretty tough and have a few special powers to help them kill your enemies. You star with basic minions who just work but with training and the proper trainer they can become anything you like. Mercenaries, soldiers, scientists etc… But in order to train them you need a trainer with that particular skill and you acquire that person by doing missions. These allow you to send minions into the big wide world and steal money or plot. You can also kidnap these trainers and use them to train up your own men.
If you buy a firing range you can train up your basic minions to more powerful soldiers. These carry powerful rifles and are much tougher, but these too can't spot enemies even if they bump into them. Time to hit red alert again! Although people may say “its part of the game to issue tags” it still doesn’t stop it from being irritating.
Although this all sounds wonderfully interesting I did find myself getting bored pretty quick with the same types of missions and conclusions. In the end it felt like I was playing the same level over and over. Not saying it wasn't fun repeating, I just felt there should have been more to it. In fact I got bored quicker with this game than any other I have played in a while.