Status:
Complete and Play Tested
For more games visit us on: https://www.bobshop.co.za/seller/4692286/Just_Press_Play_ZA
----------------------------------
Evil Genius 2: World Domination (PS5) Review
Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Rebellion
Genre: Strategy / Management Simulation
Release: 2021
Evil Genius 2: World Domination takes the classic supervillain fantasy and turns it into a management strategy game. Instead of playing as the hero trying to save the world, you become the mastermind attempting to conquer it, building an elaborate secret lair, recruiting armies of minions, constructing ridiculous traps and developing a doomsday device.
The game combines base building, resource management, strategy and a global criminal network with a deliberately humorous James Bond-inspired presentation. On PS5, the controls translate surprisingly well to console, although the sheer number of systems and the amount of micromanagement can make the experience overwhelming at times.
Gameplay & Mechanics
The central gameplay loop revolves around constructing and managing your underground lair. You begin with relatively basic facilities and gradually expand into a huge criminal headquarters containing barracks, power generators, training rooms, laboratories, control rooms, vaults, interrogation chambers and increasingly elaborate security systems.
Construction itself is straightforward. Rooms can be designed and expanded using a grid-based system, allowing you to create anything from an efficient headquarters to a maze filled with traps.
The real challenge comes from making everything work together.
Your minions require food, beds and entertainment, while specialized minions are needed for research, construction, security and other tasks. You also need sufficient electricity, money and space. Expanding too quickly can therefore create problems elsewhere in the operation.
One of the game's most enjoyable aspects is that you aren't directly controlling most of your minions. You are the manager of the organization rather than an omnipotent commander. This creates some entertaining emergent situations, although it can also be frustrating when minions make decisions that aren't particularly helpful.
Strengths
-
Excellent combination of base building and management.
-
Building layouts offer considerable freedom.
-
Numerous interconnected systems.
-
Minion specializations create meaningful management decisions.
-
Strong sense of progression.
-
PS5 controls are well adapted to the console.
Weaknesses
-
Considerable micromanagement.
-
Menus can become overwhelming.
-
Minions occasionally behave inefficiently.
-
Large bases can become difficult to monitor.
-
Some systems take a long time to fully develop.
Base Building & Security
Building the secret lair is arguably the most enjoyable part of Evil Genius 2.
You can construct your base however you want, within the limitations of the available island. Corridors can be designed around your security systems, important rooms can be hidden deeper inside the facility, and entrances can be surrounded by increasingly elaborate defenses.
The trap system is particularly entertaining.
You can deploy everything from laser grids and freezing devices to poison darts, giant fans and absurdly elaborate contraptions designed to humiliate or eliminate invading agents. Combining traps can produce particularly satisfying results when an unsuspecting investigator walks into a carefully constructed chain reaction.
The problem is that traps aren't always as effective as their appearance suggests. More powerful enemies can bypass or withstand many of your defenses, while some traps primarily delay rather than eliminate intruders.
Nevertheless, creating a ridiculous corridor of traps and watching enemy agents stumble through it remains one of the game's greatest pleasures.
World Map & Criminal Empire
Your base is only half of the operation.
The world map allows you to establish criminal networks across different regions and send minions out to conduct Schemes. These generate money and other resources while advancing your larger objectives.
The system creates an interesting secondary management layer. You need to decide where to establish networks, which schemes are worth pursuing and how many minions you can afford to send away from the base.
Schemes also generate Heat, representing how much attention your criminal activities attract. Too much Heat can result in investigations and increasingly dangerous attacks on your headquarters.
This creates a constant balancing act:
Expand your criminal empire generate more money attract more attention defend your base rebuild your organization expand again.
It's an effective gameplay loop, although it can become repetitive during longer campaigns.
Pros
-
Fantastic supervillain concept.
-
Fun and flexible base building.
-
Excellent combination of strategy and management.
-
Entertaining trap system.
-
Strong cartoon presentation.
-
Great spy-movie atmosphere.
-
Four playable Evil Geniuses.
-
Large number of minion types and specialists.
-
Enjoyable sandbox mode.
-
Plenty of systems to manage.
Cons
-
Can become overwhelming.
-
Considerable micromanagement.
-
Campaigns can drag.
-
Some objectives become repetitive.
-
Minion AI can occasionally be frustrating.
-
Traps aren't always as effective as expected.
-
World-map gameplay can become repetitive.
-
Learning all the interconnected systems takes time.
Final Verdict
Evil Genius 2: World Domination is an unusual and entertaining strategy game that successfully captures the fantasy of being a Bond-style supervillain. Building a secret island lair, recruiting increasingly specialized minions, creating elaborate traps and watching your criminal organization gradually expand across the globe is a genuinely satisfying concept.
Its biggest weakness is that managing such a large operation can sometimes feel more like administrative work than strategic villainy. The number of systems, notifications and competing priorities can become overwhelming, while the campaigns occasionally take too long to reach their conclusions.
The PS5 version nevertheless provides a good console adaptation, and the combination of base building, resource management, traps and global strategy gives Evil Genius 2 plenty of personality. It isn't the deepest management simulation available, but its unique theme and sense of humor make it stand out.
Score: 8/10
