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Watch For It...
Aug. 31st, 2004 09:45 pmNot many Real-Time Strategy games break the mold. There's Homeworld of course which is an award-winner in its own right. But then there was something totally oddball that just had to work. That game was Dungeon Keeper.
Despite a very well-done sequel, this particular sub-genre has never taken off too well. (It could be argued that Tropico could fall into this category.) And of course all plans for a DK3 were scrapped early on; and Bullfrog is, sadly, no more. The idea of playing the "bad guy" and making the lives of the good guys miserable for some reason never caught on. Or maybe there were only just so many ways you could do it. It looks like Elixer Games has managed it with their upcoming title Evil Genius.
Okay, take the tongue-in-cheek humor of and basic premise of Dungeon Keeper. Add in some retro-esque visual and audio themes from the 70's superspy films (and not only the Bond franchise but also Our Man Flint, and don't get me started on Austin Powers if you want this review to remain remotely on-topic!) that were done quite well in No One Lives Forever. And there you have Evil Genius: build your secret lair, recruit minions, build traps, defend it against the good-guy infiltrators, await the inevitable coming of the superspy, and achieve various goals such as, oh, I don't know, world domination.
I don't know why, but games like this and Dungeon Keeper are just a lot more fun for me than the usual fare. Maybe it's the irreverent humor, maybe it's the allure of playing an amoral yet presumably well-written villain, or maybe it's just because it's such a twist on 'traditional themes.'
The demo is out there, and it seems to be equivalent to a very small Dungeon Keeper map. There are a number of very humorous touches. (It's worth downloading just to see one of the guards interrogating a prisoner. No, really, it's not disturbing or shocking at all, it's just hilarious.) No real voice acting -- aside from the indispensible Number Two they all seem to speak a (variant evil) dialect of Simese -- but that doesn't hurt it at all. At about 200 megs it's light as demos go these days and you'll feel it, but it's quite a nice taste of the full game if they can add more content to it. That'll decide wether it goes the way of Startopia or if it'll be the next Dungeon Keeper.
My recommendation: pull it down, it's worth that much of a look at least. Get the full game? If they can give it a lot of content and interesting challenges and twists (for example, none of the traps are in the demo) then it'll be a good consideration if you're on a budget, and a definite buy if you're not hindered by financial issues.
Despite a very well-done sequel, this particular sub-genre has never taken off too well. (It could be argued that Tropico could fall into this category.) And of course all plans for a DK3 were scrapped early on; and Bullfrog is, sadly, no more. The idea of playing the "bad guy" and making the lives of the good guys miserable for some reason never caught on. Or maybe there were only just so many ways you could do it. It looks like Elixer Games has managed it with their upcoming title Evil Genius.
Okay, take the tongue-in-cheek humor of and basic premise of Dungeon Keeper. Add in some retro-esque visual and audio themes from the 70's superspy films (and not only the Bond franchise but also Our Man Flint, and don't get me started on Austin Powers if you want this review to remain remotely on-topic!) that were done quite well in No One Lives Forever. And there you have Evil Genius: build your secret lair, recruit minions, build traps, defend it against the good-guy infiltrators, await the inevitable coming of the superspy, and achieve various goals such as, oh, I don't know, world domination.
I don't know why, but games like this and Dungeon Keeper are just a lot more fun for me than the usual fare. Maybe it's the irreverent humor, maybe it's the allure of playing an amoral yet presumably well-written villain, or maybe it's just because it's such a twist on 'traditional themes.'
The demo is out there, and it seems to be equivalent to a very small Dungeon Keeper map. There are a number of very humorous touches. (It's worth downloading just to see one of the guards interrogating a prisoner. No, really, it's not disturbing or shocking at all, it's just hilarious.) No real voice acting -- aside from the indispensible Number Two they all seem to speak a (variant evil) dialect of Simese -- but that doesn't hurt it at all. At about 200 megs it's light as demos go these days and you'll feel it, but it's quite a nice taste of the full game if they can add more content to it. That'll decide wether it goes the way of Startopia or if it'll be the next Dungeon Keeper.
My recommendation: pull it down, it's worth that much of a look at least. Get the full game? If they can give it a lot of content and interesting challenges and twists (for example, none of the traps are in the demo) then it'll be a good consideration if you're on a budget, and a definite buy if you're not hindered by financial issues.
