Yes, There Will Be Cake
Ever wanted to just, like, be GLaDOS? Set up test chambers, force heroes through them, and expand Aperture Science’s influence through the world? Portal‘s setting seems ripe for a base-management simulator, and while that game doesn’t (yet) exist, Evil Genius 2 certainly does. And now, a free expansion offers PC players a chance to live out that fantasy.
Evil Genius 2 is already an exercise in wish-fulfillment, and now this portal expansion offers so many more avenues for diabolical behavior. Rebellion’s game puts players in the role of villainous mastermind with sights set on world domination – offering a bunch of classic spy-movie tropes for players to work with. Now that Valve’s Portal joins their ranks, fans of either franchise can enjoy some deliciously on-theme experiences offered by this update.
The expansion includes a new “test chamber” room type, 4 new traps (including the game’s famous “repulsion” and “propulsion” gels), 3 new Lair items to upgrade your base (including those wonderful turrets), additional side story objectives, and more. Players are also given the ability to staff their facility with robots instead of people (or a mix of both!), if they really want to lean into that Portal aesthetic.
Sim games have always had a contingent of players who want to do maniacal things to their NPCs, and this expansion allows them to follow those dreams. Since the game occasionally spawns “heroes” for you to fend off, you’ll have to set up plenty of traps to keep your base safe. Because this expansion lets you create not just traps, but “test chambers”, you have a whole arsenal of ways to put those heroes through “purely scientific experiments”. The game now offers a bevvy of tools to prompt evil schemes, from trapped walls to send heroes down a path you create, to the ominously-named “cake-that-is-a-lie” (paired with the “actual cake” option). What kind of “experiments” will you run?