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Genius is a combination of Civilization melded with a physics class. You start with nothing and have to build your technology and infrastructure to build your empire. You start by building wooden bicycles and continue to learn new ideas and inventions to both improve your product and profitability. Through reading physics journals and corresponding with fellow scientists/inventors, you continually gain knowledge and improve your products. Just be ready to do some mathematics and physics calculations along the way.

The graphics are decent. There are no new spectacular graphics or anything real different from the other empire building games. The real distinguishing factor of this game is the fact that to remain competitive, you better read up on the publications you can subscribe to as well as be ready to do some mathematical equations. In order to compete and keep your products in high demand, you will need to answer questions in the form of physics problems. How Joules of energy are need to move your 30000 kg locomotive 100 km with a friction factor of 0.15. If you have the answer off the top of your head then dive right in and start playing. If you would like to challenge your physics knowledge or just learn the answer, start playing.

The overall gameplay is also nothing unusual. Build your town and factories in strategic locations and make money. Just like any of the empire building games I tend to find myself getting addicted and telling myself I can do better if I only do this instead. So of course as soon as I reach the pinnacle point I start over to prove I can do better. And of course sometimes you do and sometimes your ideas just don’t work. Just watch the number of workers you have available compared to the amount you need.

The controls are very easy to learn and allow you to jump right in and start playing the game. If you have played any empire building game before then you can easily jump into this game. Pretty much everything is pretty self explanatory and easy to use. Clear some trees, build some roads, build some houses and then build your empire of factories. You can start making money hand over foot pretty easily but if you don’t solve the puzzles correctly and keep up with technology, you might as well just close the doors on your factories. Pretty much like the real world, isn’t it? Keep up or go home.

The sounds are overall pretty boring. I found that there were some soundbites that were repeated immediately following the resolution of the puzzle. I guess they don’t want you jumping ahead of the speeches. The background music was no different than many of the other building games out there. I would recommend leaving the sound effects on though because when your empire starts getting extremely large, there are a couple of tones that tip you off to when there is a new technological advancement to discover at your research and development labs.

Overall I would have to recommend this game if you are into the empire building type games. It does a good job of following the classic yet proven gameplay formula with a little bit of a twist. Just be ready to do some math and physics problems and be ready to learn. Yes it’s a scary thought but you can actually learn some things while playing this game other than how to create mass hysteria.