In the Bargain Bin this week, Evil Genius, developed by Elixir Studios and published by Sierra Entertainment.  Evil Genius was released on my 21st birthday, making it just shy of five years old.  Not an incredibly old game, but again, game years are more like dog years.  Evil Genius is a take on the 60′s spy thrillers, mainly James Bond flicks.  You have an evil genius(you), a secret lair inside a mountain, a henchman or two, and a who boat load of traps and gizmo’s.  The whole point of the game is, as one would think, to be evil.

My first step at becoming an evil genius was browsing a few shady websites.  A few hours later, I had Evil Genius installed and ready to play.  The exact details of how are not important.  What is important is that from the very first splash screen, I knew that this game had stood the test of time.

Evil Genius is a Real Time Strategy Simulation game, and could be the only one, I can’t recall any other games like this out there.  You play as one of three evil geniuss’, on a quest for world domination.  You start out on a remote island of undisclosed location, just you, your first henchman, and a handful of minions.  You build a base inside the mountain that centers the island, filling it with all sorts of rooms.  You need a barracks, a mess hall, an infirmary, a control room, an armory, and a whole bunch more.  As the game proceeds you devise, or more accurately steal, plans for a doomsday device.  There are three devices to choose from, adding to the replay ability of the game.

In fact, there a lot of ways replayability is built in this game.  There are three different doomsday devices to choose to make, three different evil geniuses to play as.  There are also eleven different henchmen you can pick from, the most I had at once was four so you can mix them up pretty well to keep things fresh.  There is also the two different islands in the game, both of which you can play around with your base design to constantly make up new ways to maximize space.  Researching in the game unlocks new items and traps, researching is done when your science minions wander around your base and find things to research, over 70 items can be unlocked with researching.

The entire game is played in two modes.  There is the simulation, top-down view of your base and all your minions running around doing your evil bidding.  Then there is what is called ‘World Domination Mode’, it is here that you steal money from the various world organizations.  You also preform ‘Acts of Infamay’, evil deeds that get your notoriety, heat, and the occasional piece of loot.  The loot helps keep your minions happy and working, the heat brings Agents of Justice to hunt you down, and the notoriety helps make the world tremble at your feet.

Worried about all the Agents of Justice on your island?  No biggie, you can get your minions to kill, capture, or psychologically weaken them.  Once captured you can interrogate them for useful information or just for the fun of it.  Enjoy interrogating, but getting bored of its monotony?  You can interrogate on dozen of items throughout the base, that large mixing bowl isn’t just for making cakes anymore.

Replayability, this game definitely has.  But does it still hold up, after five years?  Well, yes.

There are only a few faults to this game.  There is no speed control, at times this is fine, other times it a real pain is the arse.  The maximum minions is a tad lower than preferred.  The furthest you can zoom out/up from your base isn’t enough to see all of it at once, some cases not enough to see a whole room.

But even the faults are allowed, because most of those options, and virtually all the games settings, can bet edited very easily.  All the configurations are available in easy to read spreadsheets, just begging to be altered.  Cheating you say?  I say no, after all, you’re goal is to be an Evil Genius.  What Evil Genius wouldn’t alter the situation to better themselves?  That’s all part of you mission to the ending and launching of your Doomsday Device.

Evil Genius revives a score of 2.