Greed is Good

The original Evil Genius launched on PC systems back in 2004. Its promise of becoming one of the available Geniuses and fulfilling their plan to take over the world while embodying the “Greed is Good” mantra was a fantastic one. I can recall putting in many hours into my avatar Shen Yu’s schemes; not only that but designing and redesigning my base to stop attempts from A.N.V.I.L. or some other acronym named justice departments agents from snooping around was so much fun. Fast forward what feels like forever, and Rebellion has taken the franchise out of deep freeze with Evil Genius 2: World Domination.

Evil Genius 2 is much like its predecessor in a lot of ways but better. Keeping with the cool world of secret agents and volcano lairs which Bond’s of old embraced mixed with a ton of the Austin Power spoof of the spy genre. There was more than one occasion where I would chuckle as my chosen Genius berated a minion for a mistake. But this game invites players to embrace that inner villain that some of us have within and it provides a pretty big sandbox with which to flex your villainous muscle.

MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $59.99

I had already purchased Evil Genius 2 for PC back when it launched in March of 2021, so going into my review for the console version I was most concerned with how the controls would transition to console. As most of us know, these type of sandbox/RTS/RPG type games work best with the flexibility that a keyboard and mouse can provide. Well, I can confirm that the tight controls that Rebellion developed for PC have been expertly tuned for the console release. While of course it will take longer to reach various items in the build menu; it wont take long before they start to full intuitive enough that will allow players to relax and focus more on the bigger picture world dominating.

Taking over the world is a long journey, and that starts with building out a base of operations. In Evil Genius 2 players will carve (literally) their base out of a mountain; all the while maintaining the ‘front’ of a casino/island paradise in hopes to keep those pesky agents of justice out of the inner sanctum. As the player progresses the story more and more rooms will become available. And unlike the original where players only had access to a singular floor of their base; EG2 allows the use of multiple floors. This will enable more experimenting with base building; instead of the need of having a plan well in advance due to the limit of a single floor.

Income for the players EG’s will come by way of ‘schemes’; and these tasks are carried out by minions on the ‘world stage’. This visual representation of the world has all of the continents color coded based on the spy organization that handles that particular territory. Once players set up a criminal network, they will have various options to choose from. Sending out minions for most schemes will generate passive income, but future tyrants must be careful. You see as one commit crimes the heat level will rise; if this meter tops 100% players will be blocked from accessing a scheme in that area for a while. It doesn’t mean a game over, but it can hamper income if Geniuses aren’t careful.

The bulk of gameplay takes place in the criminal lair. So, making sure that it is built and efficient will become important as your EG becomes known to the world. Soon the world will send super agents after the genius who can sabotage, kidnap or even kill minions or the Evil Genius themselves. If the Genius dies, then its game over; so, you must protect them at all cost. But to help players with this, Evil Genius 2 provides multiple traps that can be set up in the various corridors of a lair to thwart the do-gooders of justice. Plus, the system is flexible enough to allow combos such as, freezing an agent with the ‘freeze gun’ trap and then using the ‘giant fan’ trap to blow the cube into a wall of poison darts. Or perhaps information is what is needed, well you can always capture agents and torture them by tickling them, or giving them a good old fashioned wet willie until they spill their secrets. The sandbox provided is full of these types of things and even more that give so much flexibility when creating an evil empire its insane.

While not without its glitches, there was multiple times my minions stood around when I raised the base alarm due to an agent being detected. Or when I gave my henchman a kill command to an agent and instead, he ran to the 3rd floor and back down again which allowed said agent to escape. These things happen but don’t destroy the sheer delight of ‘trying to take over the world’. I am extremely happy that Evil Genius was brought back, and I hope that we can see more and more entries into this zany world of evil scientist and crazy dictators.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Bright colorful graphics give off a nostalgia
  • Controls have translated very well to console
Bad
  • I wish there was more of a difference between the Evil Geniuses.
  • A lot of the PC extra items aren’t available on the console version
7
Good
Written by
Terrence spends his time going where no one has gone before mostly. But when not planning to take over the galaxy, he spends his time raising Chocobo and trying to figure out just how the sarlaac could pull Boba Fett’s ship with its engines firing FULL BLAST into it’s maw with relative ease; yet it struggled with Han Solo who was gripping *checks notes* SAND!