Evil Genius

Evil Genius – The Game Where Being Evil Has Never Felt So Damn Good
Some games let you save the world.
Others let you conquer it with a death ray and a volcano lair staffed by morons in jumpsuits.
Evil Genius is the latter.
And it does it with so much style, James Bond would probably apply for an internship.
Story? You're not the hero. You're the moustache-twirling mastermind building a secret base, kidnapping world leaders, training disposable minions, and stealing national monuments for the vibes.
Your goal? World domination, baby. And looking damn fabulous doing it.
Gameplay? It’s like if Dungeon Keeper, Austin Powers, and Command & Conquer had a chaotic, villainous child.
You build, you micromanage, you fight off enemy agents, and you do it all while your lair slowly becomes a disco-death-trap hybrid that screams “evil but efficient.”
You don’t need to be smart – you just need to be ruthless. And patient. And maybe a little bit unhinged.
Style and tone? It’s got that retro ‘60s villain aesthetic, full of laser traps, funky wallpaper, and henchmen named Steve who blow themselves up by accident.
It’s campy. It’s clever. It’s exactly how world domination should feel.
One flaw? No sandbox mode.
Seriously, give this game an endless free-build mode and you’ve basically got Evil Genius 2 right there. That’s all it ever needed.
Speaking of which...
Yeah, Evil Genius 2 exists. It looks pretty.
But the soul of the original?
Gone. Like a laser-fried agent in your trap hallway. It’s just not the same. More polished, less charm.
Verdict? Evil Genius is a cult classic – smart, sinister, stylish, and endlessly satisfying. It doesn’t just let you play the villain –
it lets you revel in it, cackle in it, and build a corridor lined with shark tanks just for fun.
Score: 10/10 – because the only thing this game needs is sandbox mode. If it had that, we’d never speak of the sequel again.

The original is still the best. It has better henchmen, better objects like the giant mixer, and a better world map for plotting schemes. It's a classic, just buy it and enjoy it!

It's a fun "dungeon builder" game. A lot of homages and jabs at super spy tropes with a 1960's asesthetic. I like most of the character designs, everything is over the top, but some are hideous, partly due to how old the game is. The number of unit types you can build and the number of things they can do and objects they interact with is engaging. And the sound track is really well done with big bands and orchestras.
It has a fair amount of replay ability since you can make your base any way you want. Some of the mini-games it forces you into become repetitive, like having to hide agents in the field when....all enemy factions deploy agents at the same time.
The game does crash occasionally but it autsaves frequently enough this is a minor annoyance.
The WORST bug is sometimes, and way more often than it should, the game misses an event trigger. Like an important one. And you can't advance your units to the next level. You keep building and building your noteriety and the event that tirggers the next critical event never happens. And you won't know about it for hours because it's not obvious how notorious you need to be, just that you need to be notorious enough.

I liked this game a lot. It's not perfect and needs some modding to make it better like "Planet Evil's Unofficial Evil Genius Patch".
Evil Genius 2 is just not as much fun as the this one.
It's fun finding out what other ways you can use things for torture that was not their initial purpose.
Dealing with corpses in this one is annoying. But better then in EG2. In EG2 its just too simple.
The room building was also easier compared to EG2.
I liked the way the dynamite and the way the money suitcases worked. Also something that was changed for EG2

Dont know how why or where I got a physical copy of this game ages ago but I've played it a hell of a lot. I bought it a second time on steam since I cant find the CD anymore.

love it, one of the few base-management games id ever play. the over the top spy theme with the artsyle and music mixes so well. I just wish the sequel met my similar, if not lesser, expectations.

Brilliant game. One of those games I come back to probably once a year. There's also now plenty of third party fixes to the various issues the game had when it came out