House, devious house

The primary task for a true genius of criminal schemes is, of course, the construction of a room for the loot. The treasury room is perfect – the main thing is not to forget to organize pallets or blocks of safes – although they are more expensive, they are more spacious. Having arranged the gold and currency storage, it’s time to take care of something less significant – minions. They need a lot: a barracks with a dozen two-story bunks and lockers where you can store your property; a canteen where they can eat; infirmary to restore undermined health; and restrooms, where the true truth about the almighty leader, that is, about us, pours from the screens of “Villain-TV.”

Of course, hard workers eat and sleep for our money and work for the benefit of the manager’s cunning plans. In the control center, signal strength is maintained through repeaters, which allows scattering of criminal networks around the world; with the help of large screens, the speed of detection by the “enemies” of our atrocities is reduced; and on the computer terminal, valuable intelligence is mined, which opens up access to more meaningful * air quotes * operations * air quotes *, hehe. However, to fully implement villainous plans and prevent their sudden failure, it will not hurt to find specialists of a narrower profile.

As the little-known villainous saying goes: to get valuable personnel, they must be kidnapped. Following dubious wisdom, the acquisition of important professionals is carried out according to the scheme: abduction – capture – interrogation with addiction – ejection of the body … Hmmm, somehow it turns out unsuccessfully. But at least the knowledge gained during the “conversation” can be shared with your people.

Further training occurs in a training center, where a corresponding training unit is provided for each profession. First of all, you should think about preparing thugs of all stripes – from stupid guards to skilled killers. The best use of the security forces is to protect our lair from the non-stop raids of secret agents, interrogators, super soldiers, and all sorts of thieves. The main thing is not to forget to put up a rack with weapons. Otherwise, you cannot stop many enemies with your bare hands. Various traps help the workers with batons and pistols: boxing gloves and dart-throwing devices hidden in the walls; Slippery Floor, inspired by TV Villain cartoons; a giant fan or, for example, powerful lasers that fry uninvited guests until crisp.

Specialists train more subtle methods of confrontation from the category of “deceivers,” represented by lackeys, secular lions, and lionesses, as well as propagandists. Social experts can distract and tactfully remove unwanted citizens from the restricted area and play the role of a PR service, reducing the global level of suspicion and improving the attitude towards our person. The world will no longer consider us a heartless and insane tyrant from now on – just an insane tyrant!

And, of course, how to do without engineers who will repair power generators and torture equipment. Yes, and the luminaries of science will not interfere – who else will develop new weapons for us, refine traps and prepare a dubious program of self-development. And also – to implement the most reckless projects of world domination. Which, however, do not always bring the results you expect …

Naturally, our vigorous activity will not go unnoticed. After all, each geographic zone is under the strict supervision of the controlling organizations: MOLOT in Europe and Russia, GORNA in Asia, SWORD in Africa, PATRIOT in North America, and UDARA South. Any successful fraud inevitably attracts the attention of law enforcement officers, and if the interest in our organization exceeds the permissible limits, then the criminal network can be covered up. Thus, temporarily blocking access to any events in a particular zone. It is, of course, possible to prevent troubles – by carrying out machinations that divert attention from our dark affairs. To provoke a medical scandal by stealing pulleys and levers from hospitals, insidiously adding a laxative to the continent’s water reserves, or freeing whales from poaching … If a good deed will benefit our nefarious deeds,

True, the suspension of activities in the region is only a small of the troubles that world “fame” promises us. It is much worse when some landing party, led by an overly patriotic Agent X, lands in the lair, or the super-soldier Yadernaya Olga takes the dining room by storm, or a British spy organizes a massacre in the corridors of the base. And the most annoying uninvited visitor is the thief Symmetry, who brings with him a whole retinue of powerful fighters (although for some reason the robbers, albeit world-class, are superior in strength to experienced mercenaries, remains a mystery). Such visits can really seriously undermine all our activities because the “guest” will exterminate most of the staff and no one to work. In the meantime, you are trying to restore the organization. Surely someone else will look at the light …

For example, I had a similar curious case when, in five minutes, one after another, enemy superspy agents wiped out almost the entire base. And the hired new employees were so disdainful to walk along the corridors heaped with suspicious black bags that they preferred to desert … The urgent construction of additional crematoria and the unprecedented spending on the non-stop hiring of new people were saved from eliminating corpses a little bit but still get rid of corpses and restore life. Base. But in general, this whole story (by the way, not the only one for the entire time of the game) slowed down the process for a good forty minutes: a very frustrating experience and an unpleasant lack of balance.

To save from such misfortunes, minions can partly – special playable characters, the right and left hands of an evil genius. True, for a strong antihero to take our side, you have to sweat. For example, to recruit the owner of the impressive Afro Eli Barracuda, you need to delve into his past in search of material for influence, fend off his attacks on the map, and, of course, fight him several times in our own lair. The hiring of other henchmen also occurs: the stories are different and dashingly written for everyone, but the process, alas, is repeated from time to time. That, after a while, begins to tire.

Achievement of goals leading to world domination is built on a similar principle, only slightly more varied. There are also hilarious missions here: create fake blueprints for the ultimate weapon and allow them to be stolen so that you can calmly develop a real ultimate weapon; or buy a country on the world stage, bringing the evil genius closer to the status of the president of the planet. But there are also trivial quests: collect so many resources, complete so many inquiries, complete so many operations. Also, the mainline often requires completing side tasks, which sometimes take an indecent amount of time. As a result, the gameplay to the finale is a bit annoying. However, I will not hide; the desire to build another stronghold of evil with a new leader at the helm is still there …

***

Evil Genius 2: World Domination – maybe not an ideal strategy, but definitely remarkable. And even some protraction does not spoil the holiday of disobedience and bizarre villainy. And its absurdly satirical form tauntingly ridicules both the peculiar features of classic espionage and political thrillers and actual phenomena, making the smile on her face last for hours. And this is an unprecedented rarity for our too serious time!

Advantages:

• rich strategic component;
• wonderful absurd humor;
• funny and curious game nuances.

Disadvantages:

• balance gaps that can ruin hours of progress;
• monotony and protractedness of some of the missions;
• small but unpleasant bugs in the spirit of characters getting stuck in the walls.