Evil Genius 2: World Domination (Zero Punctuation) 

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The way Yachtzee talks about all the problems with the game - questionably designed lair, incompetent minions, overpowered agents infiltrating your base and killing all your dudes - is actually perfectly consistent with the Bond Villain aesthetic the game shoots for, when you think about it. You know you're fully immersed in the game when you start yelling "You IMBECILES!" at your minions without a hint of irony.

What does Yahtzee even need an Evil Villain Dictator sim for? He already took over the Escapist.

At one point, in the original game, I had lured all of the super agents to my lair - one by one - and dumped them into an eternal loop that just pushed them around with giant fan traps. They could never get on their feet long enough to disable the fans or get away. It was the best fishtank simulator ever.

Someone get this man his split level food court!

This sounds rather like that Prison Architect game, with the ultimate goal being to create a system so self-sufficient that you can just sit back and watch hypnotized as the cogs of your ever-growing machine spin away. Only in that game you can indeed put any furniture you want in any kind of room, so I guess prison wardens have a better sense of feng shui than evil geniuses.

That would be a funny spy movie. The superspy makes his way all the way through the base, dodging traps, defeating guards, hacking security systems, only to make it to the bosses' office and instantly get curb-stomped. Actually, now that I think about it, something like that does happen in Hellsing Ultimate.

So in short, it's a highly accurate simulation of being a bond-esque genius supervillain.

This episode had some really good screens for ZP Out of Context

The guy in the thumbnail looks like he's going to hope no one looks at his plans while he's sleeping.

I think it'd be cool to have an Xcom-style game with a premise similar to Evil Genius - recruit minions, build a base, research and produce new weapons, slowly expand your influence...

This was secretly a concept test for "Mankind Has Yet to Recognize My Genius"

"Thats what happens when you let the fuckers to unionise" I love this series for infinite amount of quotes they provide.

Unrelated side note : For the love of God, DO NOT eat Cheetos while playing Magic, you'll regret it.

Funny how a remake 15 or whatever years later happens to have same unplayability issues as the first game, exactly how I remember them.

Having rewatched this now I've finally actually played the game, I'm guessing Yahtzee never found the auto distract and auto kill research options, nor did he discover that you can build types of rooms merged together, eg a mess hall with a few tiles of "corridor" inside it so you can build a stairway connecting an upstairs and downstairs mess hall and get your split level food court. Hell, you don't even actually have to have walls in your base. You could technically make the whole damn thing an open floor plan 😂

Too many damn limitations on the base building of this base building game.

"Saint Bungalows School for the Wheelchair Bound" - fuck, that got me.

Protip: In the early game, use Valet minions, freeze traps, and distractions to keep investigators out of your base without to throw guards into the meat grinder ever five seconds.

5:05 The thing is, Super Agents are as bad at their dedicated jobs as your minions are. The deadliest of super agents isn't the one with the machine gun, who specifically came to fill you with bullets, it's the one that's coming to nick your stuff, and just happens to have overstatted backup thieves that can maul through your army and your henchmen with their bare hands.

"Just wait til' you hear about ladders." Or fire poles... or elevators... or dumbwaiters. Or literally a pulley and gravity in general.

It's almost as if he forgot to put any surveillance cameras in his base, and didn't get far enough to discover how quickly his evil genius dies to a crack team of agents when no one's there to help them because they all quit when they had to clamber over the corpses of their mates to get to bed.

The monocle is colonel Klink from *Hogan's Heroes* since HE'S the archetype for comically inept villain mastermind

It's so nice that they're not interested in improving the games they're remaking. Startopia is another example of remaking something worse than the original... They all have the feel of almost getting it to the same level but then went "why bother?".

Imagine shooting the one DoorDash guy who delivers to an evil volcanic island smh...XD

In 2 you can freely mix and mash rooms. No minimum sizes or requirement to have a wall+door seperating the rooms. That specific items need to go into specific rooms is a affordance to allow pathfinding to operate remotely efficient.

They made a game with actual sequential numbering in it's title. Instant 10/10!

as a bond fan I appreciate the references to Dr. No and Blofeld

Was huge fan of first one... played some 10hours of EG2 and i have to admit everything said in this video is true. Sure old one was clunky in many areas but new one while improving some... also has some very questionable design decisions. You cant go from one game menu to another... always needing to "close current" to open next even tho you have a hotbar... transport helicopter take literally ages to put minions around the world... for doing 3 jobs u are blocking whole world map for at least 10mins while it go one by one, type of minion around... even new minions use helicopter to get on island ?! Guards pick weapon locker by random, some superagents spawn directly in your vault and are impossbile to kill... trying to do that u literally lose 99% of your minions unless u are some 3/4 in story to fight them... i want to love this game but... its hard

Fair criticism. I've enjoyed a fair bit into Evil Genius 2, and I'll be playing some more, but I would say you CAN have things like stairways in dining halls and rooms all together - there's no penalty for painting several rooms in one area. My barracks has a dining hall and staff room in it, and it works perfectly fine. The staff room is right by the entrance of the barracks, completely open with no walls around it. The game allows you to get creative with stuff like that. You could paint a corridor in a dining hall and stick the stairs in there. It still needed more fun, but it's got its charm, and I definitely enjoyed it.

I don't think Yatzee figured out that cameras make your guards go running after agents as soon as they enter the field of vision. Also there is an auto-tagging research you can get, I always set the casino to auto-distract so any agents who enter keep getting stuck playing the slots and losing all their money.

Zero Punctuation prog rock track of the week: *Mankind Has Still Yet To Realise His Genius* by *Whirling Labryrinths Of Death* Zero Punctuation quirky indie post-rock track of the week: *Trudging For A Twix* by *Owl Stretching Facility*

Honest critique from having about 2 days of play time so far: 1. Yeah, the room thing is kinda goofed. It is a hold over from the original, but so far does feel kinda worse than the original, but mostly this was just an issue carried over. Definitely feel like they could get rid of a few room types, and allow more things in all rooms. 2. No direct control I think is needed for balance. Having a base now that devastates the investigators, this would have been a total joke to make if I could directly control the minions. Plus you do have access to henchmen who are your direct controls. Granted there is very few of those and they're tough to get past the first, but have the right ones and you can wreck incoming waves with some good micro. One thing though that annoys me is both Henchmen and EG alike have a massive case of tunnel vision. If they're involved in a fight but getting wreck and you want to pull them out, you have to keep ordering it again and again and again and again because they will immediately return to the fight. So, basically once they're in a fight, they're committed. Best you can do is get some distance and hope your minions tank for you. 3. Tagging system is also mostly a hold over, with one change; instead of being able to mass tag a group, you have auto tag zones. I have found this is overall better, but haven't been able to play much with the kill auto tag yet. Distract though works very well for its purpose. 4. Yeah, your EG isn't that strong. You can easily deal with the trash, but anything tough comes along and you are in serious trouble. Building up your minions stats helps, as does having the right henchmen or trap combos. While the supers are good at disabling them, if you have enough they will get caught and start to get wrecked fast.

Playing Magic unsleeved while eating Cheetos? They really are evil!

3:03 All geniuses can use an ability to prioritize the jobs he's near. Or you can go to the minion manager and assign what jobs they should prioritize. Warning, they will not be picked when starting world domination schemes, so you'll have to deassign that priority for them to leave. 3:45 Use the henchmen. Put guard posts in the corridors. Put cameras to warn the guards in the security room. Goddamn dude. You can later research a system to automatically tag intruders in certain areas to Distract, Capture or Kill. This should be available from the beginning, though. 3:55 There's keybindings for assigning Distract, Capture or Kill an agent. Z X and C , i decided

The eternal grind to unlock tier 3 and 4 research items...

Me: , Google "Oubliette", 'I see',

That credits gag felt like something right out of 8-bit Theatre, and had me chucking like a right loon!

Yahtzee’s frustration about his incompetent base design reminds me of that American Dad James Bond parody episode involving a joke with Roger hiring a contractor, who was hot (he said it not me), to build his base but everything falling apart like someone getting stuck on a slide to a water tank, his minions falling through the floor, and his escape pod falling into a volcano because it was lacking fuel.

Mankind Is Yet To Realise My Genius needs to be made. Yes, I'm talking to you Benjamin Yahtzee Sebastian Dragon Croshaw. And after that, your reverse leveling RPG. Chop-chop!

I haven't heard or seen the word "oubliette" since Metroid Prime Hunters. Thanks for the nostalgia Yatz

Yahtzee glad to see your still going strong. Last time I watched your videos I was 12. To put that into perspective I'm 25 now.

Amazing... This sounds incredibly close to a word by word repeat of the Computer Gaming World magazine review of the first Evil Genius two decades ago with the exact same complaints about inefficiencies, bad AI, Evil Genius unit being overpowered, etc. They gave it 2 stars then but they're merciful like that.

I think the most disappointing thing is that there isn't a villain monologue before you kill the invader simulator. It would be awesome to have a point system for generating a good monologue and killing them or generating a good monologue and then escaping and returning stronger.

This video made me think about whether Yatzee ever reviewed War for the Overworld, but apparently he hasn't. That's a bit of a bummer, that one is a proper Dungeon keeper-esque game, even if it has a few flaws.

just take a second to try and imagine what a world with Yahtzee as absolute dictator would actually be like *oh god*

It's interesting to see Yahtzee at his desk in various areas of the screen besides the usual bottom right corner.

Maybe if this studio agreed to license this game under Illumination Entertainment and have it recast as Gru building a base with his Minions, the gameplay can be advanced because then it's not taking itself so seriously.

Well answer for most of presented issues is simple... GIT GUT. 1. Use cameras and autotags for your guards to work. Place 2x2 corridor inside rooms for cameras, guard stations and stairs (it requires a bigger corridor). 2. Not every muscle type can use every gun, no rifles or staffs for you guards. it could also be a bug, because game is a buggy mess and hotfixes are laughable. I am still waiting for fix to John Steele so he stops breaking a shark tank when he steps on it. You can easlly kill super agent with your OP henchmen like IRIS or Lubej, if not then making agent fight in melee a minion while 10 more shots him in back is a valid strategy. 3. Dont make only one entrance to base from your cover operation. Build 2 or more decoy corridors filled with traps and dead end so agents lose resorve before they even put a step in your lair. 4. Dont use shitty traps like boxing gloves. Focus on bee nest trap and freezing ray.

'Why can't I order my minions to deal with enemies directly?!' *Completely omits the Henchmen, who you can order directly.*

Has the creator of this not realised that you don't need walls? All you have to do is designate some tiles in a room as those of another room, then you can put other objects in it. You can have the whole base open-plan: the minions seem to be deaf, and aren't concerned as they work away at an info desk right next to a fusion engine. The gun racks are an irritation: it almost seems that once a minion picks up a staff, say, he'll not use anything else, ever. So you have to wait for mortality to let the minions with the weaker weapons die off, whilst carefully bringing in the more powerful racks and removing the old ones. There are problems with the game, but I've noticed that there is a lot going on under the surface: if your minions aren't happy enough, for example, things seem to go wrong more often. And there are a lot of variables for their happiness, including the sleeping quarter, the entertainment areas, and the food hall. This is after an initial, but long, run-through: I suspect the game has interesting mechanics that take a while to work out. Just my 2 cents' worth.

Taking minion, dropping it in a room and slapping it a bit about to make them build the room faster was the best part about Dungeon Keeper. I swear I am a well adjusted adult by now. I only once in a while get the urge to do that in the real world as well.

honestly yahtzee really does point out the biggest plothole with "Evil smart person" trope. Like just cause you're smart and know more than somebody doesn't mean you're out to get everybody. You still need labourers to work the factories. They're evil not stupid. If anything the whole thing of thanos-esque dudes being villians is likely just the average layman's insecurity

3:55 armless Yahtzee

Personally, I like how hands-on you have to be when running your base: Making sure all your resources are managed, your operations are being productive/lowering their heat, and DEALING with those STUPID AGENTS with my ROBOT SECRETARY (which, in my opinion, is the best control option in the early game if you know how to use her security camera trait) But I understand why that might not be to everyone's liking. Traps don't reward you for combinations, it doesn't encourage that much creativity and favors efficiency instead, and it punishes you for not learning how to strategize by the mid-game (using protocols, managing heat, keeping minion traits high, etc.)

What I take from this and games like Dungeon Keeper is that the *idea* of being a cackling evil mastermind is a lot more enjoyable than the reality of it.

"Why did i have to research a staircase" Welli see your stair case and i raise you a tier 4 upgrade that is locked because its to complex to research is folding cloths to make more space for minions that vosts like 80k..... sooooo lol

Is he gonna review Rhythm Doctor? Literally embodies his strong primary gameplay loop mantra.

"Better smart enemy then dumbass in your ranks." And based on this review, you get to enjoy a lot of both.

Damn, he’s still doing these after all these years... i remember watching his video with Gabriel on his own channel

“Mankind has still yet to realise his genius” I get that ..... heh

I'm not sure how often Yahtzee reads the comments, but I am thrilled to inform him that I knew the answer to a Trivia question at work, only because I watch all of his videos :D Thanks for telling me about Rocket League!

It has been a LONG time since I watched a video from this series, but seeing you took this one on caught my attention.

WHERE ARE THE LITTLE GOLF CARTS FOR MY MINIONS TO DRIVE AROUND THOSE HUGE CORRIDORS IN? EVERY EVIL LIAR HAS THEM! At least let us put a travelator.

I love the original game, but my biggest complaint is, and always will be, how both my minions and cameras will completely ignore any and all intruders until I personally find and target them. At 3:56 I realized that the same issue persists in the remake. Good to know that the ONE thing I wanted fixed went completely ignored. I'll still probably play it though.

You can build a corridor area inside the cateen area to build stairs.

From a quick scan on Google trends, oubliette has surged up in searches since this video was published.

1:13 there's punctuation there, how scandalous

I had similar problems with the first game, which tells us that the devs barely budged an inch in fifteen fucking years. My big mistake was designing a base that intruders would have a hard time reaching me in, making it a big, long, winding series of hallways that meant my enemies would have to go through all of my troops and all of my defenses before they could reach me. Anyone that's ever played a video game may recognize this as the standard, perfectly fucking sensible approach of dungeon design; keep the thing you want safe/hidden all the way at the back with the maximum number of hazards between it and those who might threaten it. This did not go over well with my dipshit minions, who proved increasingly useless the bigger my base got, no matter how I arranged/added rooms to meet their needs. For whatever it's worth, I went 10 hours without a single enemy goon so much as getting within sniffing range of my evil mastermind, but then some agents tunneled into my cafeteria, shot at some vending machines, and mostly blew themselves up, teaching me that they could essentially teleport anywhere they wanted at any time and putting any thought designing my base (and by extension the entire game) was completely goddamn pointless. "Genius" is the very last word that should be used to describe these games.

In the minon management menus you can select what task a dude will prioritize.

It's a pain if it's like the first one - you have to place turrets and cameras outside and wait for your scientists to unlock research of disguised ones. You have to use the alerts to make them run or walk to grab guns but then you have to listen to that awful alarm. On the first game if you used high alert and had your security desk manned they'd run for weapons and shoot anything within view of cameras and turrets without having to target each enemy individually.

He's pretty much hit the nail on the head with this review. It is a great game but it could have been amazing if it had only allowed you to actually select and delegate to specific minions. I mean they have a whole minion status screen with all their statistics on it but it legitimately means bugger all because you can't interact with anyone.

I wonder how he would like Rim world, Machivillian, Kingdoms and castles, and Dwarf fortress seeing how they kind play out that way.

The game really sounds like a reskin of the first. But here's the thing, you research new better tech like nuclear generators or autodocs for faster healing, you use service minions to bamboozle special agents until they leave the island confused and, in the second act, you can kill them (you can't kill them in act 1, it's too early, especially if you stumble into it easily). You get loot to boost stats, turrets to kill those near your entrance (which can be disguised with research) and a hotel to distract EVERYONE, even special agents. In the original, you can't fight as an evil genius so that's new. But my point is, the game is one of those things where you need to learn how to best it. It's enjoyable when you get into a groove, it's just hard getting there. Hell, it took me since the release of the first one to get half way through the first game! Nobody said being evil was easy.

The funny thing is the whole supper agent thing happened to me. Had the master thief one bring like 6 lackies. It took all my guards to stop the lackies then the super agent made to my inner sanctum and got really engrossed in the mega loot I had nicked and promptly got wasted by my evil genius. Love the reviews

Think Yahtzee may have misunderstood this game. Which is pretty damn rare. All jokes aside based on all of his "criticism" of this game I'm willing to be they added to the authenticity of said game, especially the gross incompetence of the henchmen. The game really seems like how it WOULD be to be a Bond villain within the actual Ame Bond universe. Lol.

Wow, that "Mankind has still yet to realise his genius" part in the credits could be a callback to the idea for a supervillain game he coined in his Saints Row 2 video all the way back in 2008. Now that's attention to detail.

The way Yahtzee describes it I feel like this game was designed to with the synchronicity of being a cautionary take on why becoming an evil genius is a bad idea and more trouble than its worth and explaining why James Bond and all the other spies in spy films somehow succeed.

You're complaint about the super agents is a little hollow as you can avoid them on 5he world map in order to keep them away

Man, gotta love anytime you get to use the word oubliette!

The trick to super agents is to pick a good super henchman to fight them. Those guys you can control. As in the last game Junbei is the objectively superior first pick as he's a combat power house that can teleport.

My dude, if you wanted a two level lunch room, all you had to do was zone in corridor in the middle of your lunch room. Or to the side of your lunchroom, whatever you were wanting. The only limitation is the room zones and the fact that it has to be at least 3x3 squares. Although the stairs take 4x6. I did a two level control room using that, it's not too difficult, you just need to zone right. Also, your evil Genius is only able to take on the beginning level agents and investigators, as they get stronger he has put in more and more danger and you need more and more minions to defend him. Or traps. Whatever tactics you choose to go with.

Breakfast grapefruit vs grapefruit? There’s a difference? You know asking the important questions

You could always do like the gorillaz and convert the floating plastic mass into a island and build a base on it

This review reminded me of an old and lovely PS1 spin-off from Mega Man - The MisAdventures of Tron Bonne - and her small army of servbots who play various mini-games (some involving torture) to improve their stats and earn her more money.

Well technically, the player being the only threat to the heroes does seem to go hand in hand with the whole “villain’s grunts are bumbling idiots and the villain has to do everything himself” trope.

Bro, I love the game and have been playing nonstop since release.

Sounds like you were playing as Ivan. Ivan is one of the more violent geniuses, so he can tank a certain amount of danger. That said, Super Agents can be weakened by Social Minions, making them easier to catch and damage with other minions and traps. As for the various break rooms, those are based on minion types. Science minions go to the sushi bar, Social minions to the Refreshment stop, and Muscle minions at the Dinner bar. This makes it eminently practical to construct a small mess hall near the science labs, for instance, a real method employed by various businesses and employers to minimize break times.

Outstanding review. I was laughing so much I couldn’t breathe!

Maybe you should try factorio if all you wish is to build a base so efficient that it runs itself.

1:05 Dungeon Keeper? Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.

2:10 Question: How do minions of the evil overlord unionise? Imagine being a minion and going to the overlord telling him that you have formed a union. What do you think would happen next? 2:37 Ackhtually, one of the villains is in the... *cough* wheelchair, so... maybe?

You CAN in fact send someone to just shoot the bugger, but you need a henchman for that, not a minion. And if you picked Jubei ("The Samurai"), you can just teleport him right to the bugger he's supposed to kill, even if he's 3 floors down and at the other end of the base. I.R.I.S., the robotics henchman can sorta work too, except instead of teleporting herself, she can summon every guard in a barracks to her position. So basically you can't click them a guard yourself and tell him to move hit fat ass over here and deal with the intruders, but I.R.I.S. can. Well, not individually, but the whole gang. If you picked anyone else than Jubei or I.R.I.S., well, there's still hope for you. It's called starting again ;) Except if you picked Jackie Bombe ("the fan"). Then you are officially too kind hearted to be an Evil Genius. Because only the most saintly and benevolent ruler would give such a 100% useless fangirl a chance at being a henchman. (Seriously, she has the second worst stats of all henchmen. The actual worst one is actually higher tier and unlocks very late.) So forget about taking over the world, and go back to guiding old ladies across the street, or whatever it is you good people do :p

Fun fact: There *IS* a way to prioritise minions to certain tasks (or training into a specific branch) ... That's never mentioned in game, has traits (likely) meant to be used with it, that you have no info as to what they actually do, and is overall pretty meh.

This is by far the best one out of at least the last dozen

Was not expecting the big fuck off gun

I hope those Magic: The Gathering cards were sleeved; Cheeto dust is hell on cards.

There was this run from 1997-2004 where a ton of games that would have made great strategy/management games ended up being hamstrung by the inexplicable decision to make it into a The Sims hands off simulator. Any strategy was thwarted since the whole game relied on giving vague orders and crossing your fingers that your underling AI would walk to the right spot and do the right thing. Dungeon Keeper, Evil Genius, Ghost Master, Theme Hospital, Majesty, Black & White It's like the creators were so full of themselves that they could create the perfect AI, so they made games that were 90% relying on the AI. But the AI was still shit.

bold of you to assume doordash wouldn't just send more helpless gig workers to the slaughter

I still am having fun. It's cool to design the base and watch it grow over time. Idk. I'd recommend it. Just my opinion.