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Oil Empire (with an unofficial subtitle "The world disasters, dead birds, love and hatred") is one of the most original Czech video games. Although the authors made no secret of the inspiration with older title Oil Imperium, this project adds a few other layers in the form of completely different genres. At first sight, it seems point-and-click adventure game from their perspective, with searching and using objects and interacting with the characters. Then comes the strategic elements - management of oil fields and drilling black gold itself, which already turns game in the genre of simulators. It takes place in the period between the two world wars, you have a protagonist - a poor young man who loves to drink. Suddenly, he learns that his rich uncle Ezra Gurban, an oil tycoon, has died, having bequeathed his entire empire to his nephew. Having reached the office of the company (the game begins with this), the hero learns that only one well remains from the "empire" as a result of the Great Depression, and the new fields are actively developing three cruel competitors at once. Moreover, he couldn’t even get to the above-mentioned office, since the key has to be found somewhere. The first thing that comes to your eyes after launching the game is, at first glance, a traditional point-and-click-adventure: without inventory, true, but with pixel-hunting, which brings to mind the best quests of the 1980s. Even in order to simply understand what and in what sequence can and should be done here, one will have to seriously stress the brain. In general, the gameplay looks like this: you need on your truck - your only property to start the game - go in search first of that key, and then - of new oil fields. You have to buy potentially oil-rich land plots, carry out exploration work, which is more difficult in each particular place than the firmer the soil, choose the method of drilling and ... hope. Yes, hopefully, because all your efforts can be wasted. And yes - there will be, of course, tables and “windows”, but not at all immediately and in sufficient numbers - for the strategy. Just because Oil Empire is not a strategy. Much more here will be all sorts of quest things - from the opportunity to get drunk and sleep (!) To the very personal sabotaging of the mentioned competitors, the fight against which promises to be hard and uncompromising. Before you is a construction simulator for the construction of an oil tycoon’s career with all possible aspects of his life, including those that have never been addressed in other games. It uses a pleasant hand-drawn style, although the style is sometimes deliberately sloppy. Most screens are static images, which, however, have some animation, including interactive. There is black humor here (pay attention to the unfortunate bird on the very first screen), and even quite a bit of eroticism. |
