Stop me if you've heard this before: An egotistical insane megalomaniac plans to launch a plan to become the most powerful man in the world, or even...destroy it. It's up to the charming and plucky super spy to save the day and get the girl, whose name is...John Steele? Wait, who...? Where the hell is the right script...!
Apparently that was the right script, and today is not a James Bond film, but instead Evil Genius 2, a sequel to the 2004 game where you played as a cold war era...bond villain, pretty much. And yes, John Steele was a James Bond clone. As you might guess, you have to try to take over the world and become the most powerful criminal in the underworld, and keep the forces of Justice from stopping you.
Evil Genius 2 does not deviate from this set up, although it takes place...uh...I really have no idea when it takes place, but enough time after the first one that a middle aged man turns into an old man and a child turns into a man. 20 years, I guess?
Anyway that's not important, what is, is the fact an Evil Genius did take over the world in 1, and then lost it. I'm not really sure what's the point of that, but you can choose as four Evil Genius's, Maxmillion from the first game, the only genius returning, Red Ivan, a henchmen of the first game that is now a proper genius, Emma, an former spymaster for the forces of Justice, and Zalika, who...does...science?
Despite my confusion on Zalikas motives, objectives, or why she does anything, (confounded even more by the fact I have an RP character by the same name.) each Genius does have a distinct flavor and even personality. A weird thing is all the lines of the Evil Genius's are voice acted, but only the main mission ones have written dialogue just for them, all side objectives voiced dialogues all the same line, just different actors. Anyway, Rebellion, the developers, claimed that each would have a unique play-style. Do they?
Eeeh, not really. Honestly I found the different choices of islands more game play changing then anything else. But each island does feel, look, and force you to build differently. For example, the firs toption island gives you ton of access on the first floor of the mountain, and you can safely build in a cluster keeping your rooms close by so minions don't have to run around so much.
In the second option, the island is separated into two islands that are bridged at the top, meaning you'll need to effectively make two bases of operation, but the corridor leading to second island can be filled with traps to kill or deter others.
The third island is called "The Donut". And it is donut shaped, meaning I had to build three bases around it, because it takes FOREVER for minions to walk around it. also unlike the others, I added a secondary door leading from my cover operation.
Yes, in Evil Genius 2 you get a cover operation, a casino, that starts off abandoned by soon will be filled with valets doing whatever you want them to do to keep the forces of Justice deterred and tourists clueless.
Minions are separated into four types, the basic worker, the Muscle minions, the Science minions, and the Deception minions that go from a simple valet all the way to a counter agent. All minions start as workers and need to be trained up into one of the three types.
Anyway, onto my opinion on the game: The game is gorgeous. It's stylized just right in a cartoon way, doesn't require too much space in the hard drive, and looks amazing. While I can see why people would say the game took away the cold war super spy villain theme and feel, as to me it seems more like weekend cartoons now, I personally like it, even the bad humor, because bad puns and jokes are my jam.
Building the base is also easy and much less of a hassle in this game then the first, as you unlock the ability to use the cover operation almost immediately, thus allowing you to plan your operation around that instead of it being unlocked after you've built your base in Evil Genius 1.
Unfortunately that's where the 100% good things in my eyes end. The art style and base building are it. The UI and hints and tips for how to do things are...extremely absent. Despite the UI constantly going off and being very shiny and annoying, they do not tell you what to do much. There were several times in the game I had to stop and think about what to do as the game never told me how to do it.
The tutorial also is extremely long, and that's okay, but, for some reason, the tutorial makes the game so much easier. I had to restart one of my games because I failed at the start of it, my evil genius died. without the tutorial, your thrown into the deep end of the pool, with agents coming immediately after you instead of no agents until after the tutorial, and no way to defend your Evil self.
This loops into another problem, Investigators, the easiest to kill of all forces of justice, do not in fact, get killed easily. they have 75 health to start with, that's 25 more thne your minion, they also take less damage then minions from attacks, AND they have guns that can kill a worker minion in one shot.
Honestly I found it was much easier to just let the investigators go, unlike from what I remember from the first game, they do not summon tougher enemies, instead they just summon more investigators, which you can also let go. Supposedly higher heat levels, aka, how prominent the forces of justice view you as a threat, mean more tougher enemies, but I have yet to come across anything. Even soldiers are easier to kill then investigators.
This killed the game for me. Why even bother if the forces of justice pose no threat? But oh dear reader, there's so much more to complain about...
The forces of Justice in both games are called silly acronyms, SMASH, HAMMER, SABRE, PATRIOT, and ANVIL...but in the first one HAMMER was obviously the soviet union, PATRIOT was America, ANVIL china, SABRE britian and most of Europe, and SMASH....was everything else, really. PATRIOT had all of north America and japan as well, HAMMER was eastern Europe and Russia, along with the middle east. Sabre were all the British colones and western Europe. Get the picture? Well don't, because in Evil Genius 2, they just group them all by continent instead of by lore or political power like the last game. So the British SABRE is now all in Africa, and HAMMER controls all of Russia, Europe, and Japan. What is even going on?
To make matters worse, despite there being around a dozen henchmen in The original game, only two come back. This isn't a huge problem for me, but I could see why it would be for others: It feels like it's barely connected to evil genius 1 for some people.
Of course, I forgot the most important thing of EG2: The control room. you use Radio relays to send minions out into the world, and this is how you get money. The problem: The map quickly becomes cluttered and instead of being able to zoom in on an important missions, you have to manually look for one. The lack of info on important things doesn't stop there, you are notified when a group of JUSTICE workers are coming, but never -where they are-, and sine there's no way to differentiate them aside from manually looking, unlike in the first game which had a mini map showing good guys trying to stop you, you just have to zoom in and look.
In original evil genius 1, the radio relays had to be manned to provide a bonus, but in 2 they do not. I would be fine with this, if it weren't for the fact Minions will still man them. and get tired from working on them, despite there being no benefit from it, and this stops them from working on things that DO give you benefit if a minion works there.
The simplifications of the evil genius formula, the ones not listed here, anyway, are hit and miss for me. some work well, like not needing briefcases to carry gold around, some do not, like the above mentioned radio relay problem.
So why do I have 60+ hours on this game? For one, the campaign is extremely drawn out, it took me at least 50 hours to complete it. I didn't speed run, but I didn't dawdle either, and because of some insane reason, side objectives expire if you go too far in the campaign. It's extremely annoying, and on top of that, the loot you get that is not just gold, examples being the Trojan Horse, a dodo, and godzilla's egg ,all are not worth the effort to actually get them. this game is extremely grindy.
So, why am I still playing it? Uh...well....shit man, it's merely because of Brian Blessed, okay? He's the voice actor for Red Ivan, and he is amazing. I mean, look at him!
So yeah, I'm playing the campaign for the second time just as a different genius, all for a voice actor. Help.
Anyway, this is all for now, have fun and stay safe everyone.
Also, I plan on reviewing a bunch of games about evil characters being the protagonists. While I have a lot more that I could use in the backlog of 500+ games I own, we're just going with Dungeons 1, 2 Overlord 1 and 2, Evil Genius 1 and 2, and Attack of the Earthlings. I think 7 game is enough for now, and I am doing these in no particular order.
