Evil Genius

When Elixir Studios was casting about for an idea for a game, they thought of the classic James Bond 007 series. But rather than take on the role of the good guy out to save the world, why not create a game in which the bad guy is trying to take over the world.

That’s the premise behind Evil Genius, published by Vivendi Universal for the PC and slated for a September release.

The player takes on the guise of the evil mastermind, sitting on a island that sports a secret base where minions are trained, plots are hatched and mayhem is created.

According to press materials released by VUG, game features include:

 

• Five dastardly gameplay elements to experience and master: secret base building, wildly clever trap setting, blindly loyal minion training, super-duper weapon research, and fiendish mission planning

§      Manage your minions as you train them in treacherous trades, like super weapons development, ninja fighting techniques, hidden lair building

§       Enhance your base capabilities by adding specialized rooms including counterfeiting centers, weapons factories, and Kung Fu academies

• Defend your base against attacks by obnoxious action heroes and over-dressed government agents

• Set complex and ingenious traps to capture and dispatch your enemies

• Undertake outrageous missions to increase your power and notoriety, including stealing the Eiffel Tower, ransoming temperamental pop stars, and procuring priceless treasures and art

Players can choose from three different avatars, each with different characteristics. The goal is to create a world doomsday machine. Each evil genius can have up to 10 henchmen total, seven at any one time. There are three career modes for minions – military, social and science. You can also set traps to circumvent invasion by the forces of good.

The game is a simulation-strategy title, but great care has been taken to make this as simple as possible for the player to get into and enjoy. The graphical elements are typical of the genre, but the charm of this title will definitely lay in the opportunity to “Be Dr. No” as the developers so eloquently stated.

The game is expected to have a Teen rating.

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