Game Reviews

Oil Rush

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| Oil Rush
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Oil Rush
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| Oil Rush

For all of its graphical shenanigans, which are impressive, Oil Rush is a game about looking at dots.

Most of your time will be spent in the zoomed out, tactical screen, issuing orders to your boats and planes, then watching the blobs that represent them trundling off into danger.

You'll occasionally snap back out to the three-dimensional representation of the world to add defences to your bases or see some jetskis skimming across the water, but it's too difficult to work out which way the tide of battle is turning, so you'll nip back to the dots to see if you're winning.

Blood for oil

The game is a stripped-back real-time strategy romp about a post-apocalyptic world where the sea levels have risen and oil is the most important commodity. Think Waterworld but with a less interesting visual hook and no Kevin Costner.

Although the lead character is called Kevin. He's fresh out of armada commanding school and it's up to you to lead him through a series of battles against rogue elements. The main thrust of play involves capturing and keeping towers.

You start each scrap with a number of boats, then send them out in chunks to attack and take enemy structures. Once a structure is taken it'll produce new units or churn out oil, depending on its type.

You can add defensive towers to your platforms to strengthen them against enemy attack, and then, when your forces are replenished, head out to capture the next. Rinse-and-repeat until you own all the structures on the map.

You get upgrades as you play that strengthen your units and give you special powers to use against the enemy fleet as well.

Squeaky wheels

Oil Rush is pretty hands-off when it comes to combat, and often it's a case of building up your numbers and overwhelming the enemy.

The separation of the mechanical and graphical side of things means the tap controls don't get confusing, but it also means you miss out on the spectacle of your victories.

It has a few neat ideas, and the shiny water and impressive scenery look good, but Oil Rush doesn't engage you the way a decent RTS should. You might enjoy your time on the choppy seas, but eventually you'll get a bit tired of all the dots.

Oil Rush

There are a few enjoyable moments, but Oil Rush doesn't manage to thread them together into an entertaining whole
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.