For anyone who grew up watching Spy films; images of the Super-Villain holed up in a high-tech and secluded base come to mind. The lair is usually the place where their diabolical plan is hatched and carried out; forcing the hero to brave all odds as they infiltrate the base and confront the villain.
In Evil Genius 2: World Domination; players get to play as the bad guy and construct a base in which they will formulate and launch their various schemes.
Picking a bad guy is only the start; as players must make sure to build and equip necessary rooms which is done by carving out space and making sure the needed gear is available. An interrogation room is great but does no good unless players have a cell.
Players will have to launch schemes at various world locales so they can have the needed resources to grow the base as well as increase their influence. As this grows; the base becomes more and more tempting to be infiltrated by do-gooders looking to save the world and stop your hard-earned plans.
As such; traps, security, and specialized units of the workforce are needed which allows players to be alerted and decide if they wish to do with infiltrators.
Placing the Boss in a room will help motivate the workforce to work faster, but nothing works as well as dispatching a worker in front of people to get that extra layer of motivation.
My biggest difficulty was making the needed rooms as not always knowing how large to make a room or the optimal place to place or move an item to appease the A.I. was at times tricky. There was also the challenge of making sure sufficient money flowed into the organization to ensure funds necessary for a smooth operation.
I enjoyed being able to zoom in on various rooms and get a detailed look at what was going on as well. My biggest gripe with the game was that much of it early on was linear and repetitive in that all I did was build, scheme, and repeat. There did not seem to be a method to the madness as several hours into the game my main focus was built, build, and build again. Fortunately, this is where the skill tree really helps as being able to select and research new areas really helped expand my immersion into the game.
What really helps the game along is that there are four Evil Geniuses available to players and being able to play four unique campaigns really helps underscore the diversity and fun of the game.
While it is not a run and gun action game; Evil Geniuses 2: World Domination allows players to take on a persona different than most games offer and set a difficulty level that is most appealing to them.
The animations are great fun to watch as is speeding up the world so that tasks are accomplished faster while your staff works at a frantic pace.
While the game is not going to be for everyone; if you have patience the reward is some really great fun and some of the most unique and enjoyable gameplay in years.
4 stars out of 5
