Developed by reLINE Software:
Concept by A. Graf von der Schulenburg, Thomas Kruza, Peter Börner, Holger Gehrmann and Tobias Richter.
COMMODORE AMIGA version programmed by A. Graf von der Schulenburg, Thomas Kruza and Peter Börner. ATARI ST version programmed by Simon Gleissner. IBM-PC version programmed by U. Pasch. COMMODORE 64 version programmed by Peter Fröhlich and H. Heinrich.
Graphics by Tobias Richter, and for the C64 version by Peter Fröhlich and Tobias Richter.
Music by Karsten Obarski, and for the ATARI ST and C64 versions by Karsten Obarski and Holger Gehrmann.
Translations by Rachel Gauntlett.
Released for Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64 and IBM-PC compatibles in 1989.
Originally published in Germany by reLINE Software in 1989. Released in Europe by Rainbow Arts, and in North America by Electronic Zoo as "Black Gold".
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INTRODUCTION AND GAME STATUS
Lo and behold, we have a strategy game on our hands this time! Perhaps this occasion should be celebrated with something, because it is a rare thing to happen on this blog. "Why is that?", I'm hearing at least one of you pondering. I admit to not being a huge fan of strategy games in general - although I do enjoy the occasional game of Civilization or Heroes of Might & Magic, that's as far as I have let myself get into it all, because even in my youth, I never liked the idea of a single game taking too much of my time at any given time. Of course nowadays, you can't get all that many games on any platform that would take less than 40-50 hours to complete. In addition to SimCity and Ports of Call, Oil Imperium (or Black Gold for you North Americans out there) was one of the first strategy games that got me hooked, because it was so clearly a light-weight strategy game, made so much more entertaining to gamers like myself by having some nice little action sequences. Like many of my friends at the time, we got to experience this marvel of a game on the Commodore Amiga with its proper title, translated to English, and naturally, cracked to bits, so this entry goes out to all the Amigist friends from my youth.
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DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
Depending on whether you're a serious strategy gamer or a not-so-serious gamer who appreciates more variety, the rest of the game can be considered either the fun parts of it, or a bit useless. So, it's definitely a game that attempts to appeal to both strategy gaming demographics, but it's one that I would definitely recommend to any strategy game novice, and it doesn't hurt to have a slice of slightly exaggerated real-world oil business exploitation.
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PLAYABILITY
First off, I'll give you the same suggestion that reLINE Software gave you in their official readme document shipped at least on the original disks: make copies of the original disks and play from the copies. The official readme even tells you to NEVER play from the original disks, probably because of the way the game deals with saved data. Happily, though, Oil Imperium and its American cousin can be HD-installed, if you have one, so you Amiga/ST hard drive owners won't have to waste more disks for it. Naturally, this doesn't apply for the C64 version, but there is a recent EasyFlash version of the game (Black Gold), which suits the purpose just fine, which I shall also be using for this comparison just for the sake of convenience. In short, all four versions can be played without swapping disks or disk sides, if you have the proper equipment for it, and it's only up to each of you to consider whether that's counterbalancing the realism factor of retro gaming or not.
Once you get to finally play from your carefully chosen type of a copy of the game, the game starts off with the usual proceedings: enter your name, choose your oil company, and you can also choose the type of office you would rather do your business in. Finally, you have to choose your goal to be one of four choices: best company after three years, gain more than $60 million in capital, ruin all other players, or gain 80% of the market. Each mission presents a slightly different kind of a challenge, but the gameplay remains basically the same. There is no difficulty level options as such, but I suppose these missions each have their own set of difficulties.
Just to get the controls over with, the C64 version is the only one that is played entirely on the joystick. The other three are played with the mouse and joystick or mouse and keyboard, depending on what is available. As you might imagine, the C64 version's joystick control is a bit clunky compared to the mouse control available elsewhere.
For the most part, the game is icon-driven. The main menu screen, which is your chosen office, features eight different items you can interact with - six clear tabs on the sides of the screen, one at the bottom and the calendar on your desk, which you can use to end your turn before the month is over. A month is basically the amount of time you are given to take your turn at buying and selling oil-related things, or do anything else necessary to keep your business straight. The annoying thing is, doing any little thing costs a surprising amount of time - just reading the paper takes an entire day from the calendar. Browsing through potential oilfields costs a lot of time, as well, and once you decide to drill oil, it takes you just about a week to get it done. But if it were not so, the game would take a considerable amount of time more than it does. Now, let's look at the icons.
At the bottom of the screen, you can see the liquid assets display, which is not interactive, and right next to it is your company logo, which is where in the DOS version, you can access the game's save and load system, view the credits and exit the game. The C64 version only features the save and load options, and the ATARI ST version features a "New Game" option in addition to Save, Load and Exit to TOS. The AMIGA version doesn't seem to have a use for the company logo button, but the manual says that if you press down the mouse button in the desk screen, a hover menu should appear. What you are actually supposed to do to make this happen, is drag your cursor as high on the screen as possible, then press the right mouse button to bring down the menu, as you do in Workbench.
Starting the game is, unfortunately, largely a game of luck. You start with 5 million dollars in your bank account, and the first thing you do is choose one of eight larger areas to buy licence, which costs 2 million dollars, before you can even get to see, what sort of prices are given for any given grid. Even though you could find a reasonably priced spot for an oilfield to purchase, there is no guarantee that it will produce nearly as much as you would wish, and before you can profit from an oilfield, you also need to buy some oil tanks into the licensed area to store your oil in.
The only real method to ensure you will have at least some success in your purchases, is to ask the experts, but even then, it will cost you 15,000 dollars to ask about a single spot in the grid, and that will take a day or two of your valuable time. In the end, it's better to just take a chance. If you're playing the ATARI ST version, the statistics and experts are hiding further towards the right in the open window, so you need to click on the scroll bar to get to the missing bits.
As the game's manual says in the Tips section, choose an area with reasonably priced fields to start your game with, and focus on that area alone for the first half a year at least, because a new licence for another area is just too expensive. Also, the game will be throwing some supply contracts you from the moment you drill your first oilfield, but you should decline all of them until you have a steady income that can withstand the demand. Should you accept a contract and fail to supply, you will be given penalty for more money than what you would have been paid.
Another wise, if unnecessary tip the manual mentions is basically, that if there is something that you can contract a third party to do in your stead, always choose to do it yourself, because it saves you a lot of money. Once you have bought an oilfield, for instance, you will need to use the drill to reach the oil source deep underground, or under the sea. This happens by controlling the squirming drill head cursor in the scanner with your joystick, or in the case of the DOS version, the cursor keys. This actually features the first notable gameplay difference between the four versions, unless you count loading times and the cursor's controllability as such. Anyway, in the DOS and C64 versions, the drill cursor acts rather sedately regardless of what sort of material you are drilling into, while the AMIGA and ATARI versions have the cursor jittering and moving about as if by force of impact, as it should be. Note, that you will need to do the drilling again, if one of your wells dries up.
Later, as soon as you are able to start selling oil, which is hopefully by the start of your second month, you might come across mutinous workers, who are unwilling to connect the pipelines to transport the oil to the buyer. So, of course, you are made to play a bit of Pipe Mania to connect the pipelines yourself, building the connecting pipes from the bottom right corner to the top left corner with the given pipe pieces. This minigame is controlled with the cursor or using the straight corresponding numpad keys for the pipeline pieces shown on the screen. You do have a time limit here, in the form of a competitor trying to get their pipeline connected between the opposite corners of the screen, so you need to be quick about it. Just watch out for any obstacles and plan your pipelining accordingly.
The oil business is, as you will come to realize soon after a good start, dirty and mean. Your competitors will eventually start spying on you and each other, and some form of sabotage is bound to happen at some point. You can also do this, and focus your sabotaging efforts on specific oil companies and their different assets. As far as I know, though, the only minigame connected to these illegal actions is, when you are required to put down the fires at your own burning oilfields. When the dreaded call arrives, you need to open the briefcase and pick up the plane ticket to travel by air and parachute down to your oilfield. The actual action part makes you walk around in your oilfield with burning towers, and you need to plant explosives to put the fires down. A bigger fire requires two explosives to put it down, but you can usually plant the two explosives simultaneously. It does sound a bit illogical, but that's how it goes. You have three lives to waste in the attempt, and if you happen to be too close to an explosion when such occurs, you will lose one of them, as well as valuable time. This action sequence is probably the best in the ATARI ST version, since you move around more swiftly in that one, but that's pretty much the only notable difference.
If you get caught on spying on or sabotaging your competitors, you will be taken to the court of law, and will be given some sort of penalty for your illegal activities. As far as I know, the smallest penalty is losing one of your oilfields, so you would better have some spare ones before you choose to take any illegal actions.
It seems as if the ATARI ST version is the least comfortable version, when played straight from the two floppy disks, due to how the game data has been divided on them, but installed on HD, it's no different from the AMIGA version. The C64 version isn't exactly better on disk, but playing from a modern storage media device, it works just about as well as the 16-bits. However, it lacks a certain feel in the drilling segments, and the joystick control is cumbersome. The DOS version is easily the most comfortable of the lot to play, thanks to having no loading times or disk changes, but it shares that lacking feel in the drilling segments with the C64 version. Unfortunately, the DOS version I have been playing has some serious problems with the oilfield burning segment, which makes it practically unplayable. But I'm basing these scores on the assumption that each and every one of these versions work as they're supposed to. The AMIGA version is the original one and has everything just as it should be, and the disk loading is the least annoying.
1. COMMODORE AMIGA / ATARI ST
2. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
3. COMMODORE 64
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GRAPHICS
Being a strategy game, the most important aspect regarding graphics in Oil Imperium is, that they're clear and easy to figure out, even if you might need some things cleared up by the manual. Of course, you do get the few action segments thrown in, which is where the clarity becomes even more important, but since most of the game is rather static, it's all the more important, that the game is nice to look at, and hopefully, has some variety. Before getting on with the graphics comparison, though, perhaps it should be pointed out, that the DOS version only supports graphic modes up to EGA and Tandy, but has no mode selector, so I have only included EGA screenshots here.
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| Opening sequences, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
The ATARI ST version is missing the pre-title reLINE logo, and the title picture seems to use less colours, basing on the crudeness of the lighting effects compared to the original. However, the credits slab features the same game title logo as featured in the cover art, which counts as a plus for me, and the presence of some actual black on the screen is also a good thing. The DOS version features a more simplified credits sequence, since it has been put together with the pre-title reLINE logo screen, and the title picture itself features no further animations, unless you count the copy protection code check as such. The C64 version starts off similarly to the AMIGA original, but features a completely new title screen with a grayscale picture, and a much less graphical credits screen afterwards.
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| Game options, top to bottom: Commodore 64, IBM-PC, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga. |
While upon first look, all the versions seem to have their options screen close enough to each other, you can find quite a bit of smaller differences, when you really focus. Just the background pattern made of one dollar bills is different for all four versions. The AMIGA, ST and DOS versions have the pattern in equal size, so they cut off at the borders at the same exact places, but there are some colour differences: the DOS version has black-and-white dollar bills, the AMIGA version has green print with clear white paper, and the ST version has green print with light green tinted paper. The C64 version has the dollar bills slightly out of sync with the others, but they look surprisingly fantastic, if slightly less pixel-perfect, and the colouring is similar to the AMIGA version.
More notable differences in the C64 version are, that there are next to no graphics in the options prompt screens themselves, apart from the buttons, and the small oil company icon in the company selection screen; also, the cursor is a pointing finger here. The 16-bit versions all have a diagonal bars background pattern in the prompt windows, the windows themselves are larger than in the C64 version, the font used for all the text is larger in all the 16-bits, and you get to see small previews of the office options instead of "Office A" to "Office D". The cursor is different for each version: the DOS version has a green arrow, the ATARI ST version has a white arrow, and the AMIGA original has a green gas canister. There are also some minor differences in the fonts used in the 16-bit versions, most notably, the DOS version features red text in some places.
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| Offices, top to bottom: Commodore 64, IBM-PC, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga. |
The original AMIGA version has some animation in two of the offices: an airplane is flying right to left occasionally in the skyscraper office, and the fireplace has a blazing fire, which is animated to have no less than three frames. Both of these animations are also featured in the ATARI version, and the DOS version features the blazing fire, but the C64 version features no animations at all.
Concerning the non-animated details, there are some strange anomalies to be noted. For one, the DOS version has a green curtain in the map room, not featured in any other version; and also, the calendar in the skyscraper office is on the shelves, rather than on the table. The C64 version has a fair bit of its own quirks: the first office desk has a piece of note paper on the green desk spread; the second office has much clearer reflections of the sky in the skyscraper shown outside your building; and the inherited looking office has a bottle of red liquid placed on the fireplace, just under Asia on the above map.
The most interesting, and most constant variant in the whole office thing is the computer, which not only features a different screen for almost every office in every version, but the featured computers and their components are varied, as well. Among the numerous variants, I think the funniest ones I noticed were the first office in the C64 version running a computer with the C64 BASIC prompt screen running; some sort of a music producing software (based on what I think looks like a virtual piano keyboard) running in the same office in the ATARI ST version; Oil Imperium running in the second office in the AMIGA version, with the first office used in the screen; and what looks to me like a calendar on a black-and-white screen on an Atari-styled desktop in the fourth office in the ATARI ST version.
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| Briefcase and desk drawer interiors, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
Now we dig a bit deeper into what the office has to offer, starting with the briefcase and the desk drawer, both of which have some important items. Both the briefcase and the drawer have green insides, except in the C64 version, where they're blue. The second anomaly is, that in the DOS version, the opened cases and drawers appear higher on the screen than in any other version. The C64 version also has a completely different looking airline ticket in the briefcase compared to the others, but even more notably, the drawer items in the DOS version are coloured and detailed very differently to the others. Obviously, the screen resolution on the C64 makes all the text a bit blockier than elsewhere, but it's all recognizable. One weird thing about the ATARI ST version is, the briefcase is almost completely dark green on the inside, and the contract has almost no text at all in it, so I think someone must have forgotten to finish the graphical work here.
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| Investigator contract options, top to bottom: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
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| Spying contract options, top to bottom: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
Similarly to the previous, the spy contracts that you find in the drawer as "Actions" folder, have a differently sized window in the C64 version, and the DOS version has one glaring anomaly in the picture design - that of the first contract, which has the slip of paper with the code, which is not only a completely different number, but also written in a felt tip pen, rather than pencil. The C64 version has a couple of different picture designs: the second picture has the gunman standing on some other building and a different type of a balcony, and the third picture has more of a Mexican-looking guy in the doorway, rather than a scary white guy that looks like some sort of a maintenance man. At least they're all in their correct places.
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| Newspaper examples, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
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| Computer interface screens. Left column: Commodore Amiga. Middle column: Atari ST. Top right: IBM-PC. Bottom right: Commodore 64. |
A neat, but useless little feature can be found in the AMIGA and ATARI ST versions: you could try to open up "Games", but the AMIGA version would give you a Guru Meditation error, and the ATARI version would give you four bombs, before taking you back to the original window. Mind you, if you try this on the Black Gold AMIGA version, this feature isn't implemented as far as getting the Guru Meditation error, so I'm guessing it's an earlier build. Similarly, the C64 version does have the Games icon, but it doesn't do anything, but the DOS version has nothing of the sort.
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| World map screens and area close-ups, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, IBM-PC. |
What I will mention is, that the rectangled areas in the main world map have some sort of highlight colouring in the AMIGA and ATARI versions, while the C64 and DOS versions don't have that luxury. The AMIGA version's highlighting colours are less noticeable than the brighter highlighting in the ATARI version, but both work fine. However, the ATARI version's grid view seems to me like there's a continuity error, compared to the AMIGA's grid view, because the colouring within the rectangle changes to the darker colouring in the ATARI version, while the AMIGA grid shows things in their highlighted shades.
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| Screenshots from different drilling sequences, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
In terms of details, the C64 version is easily the least decorated one of the lot, and the red dot in the scanner doesn't wiggle around nearly as much as in the AMIGA and ATARI versions. The DOS version also has no extraneous wiggling, but despite the lack of colours, the details are just as good as on the other two 16-bits. As a minor gribble, some versions have some problems regarding proof-reading - you can see the word "deviation" written as "diviation" in some screens.
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| Buying oil tanks - map screens, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
I have to mention one annoying thing about the AMIGA version in this context: probably the most common cracked version of the game has corrupted background graphics in this screen. Finding the original uncracked disk images is more difficult, but the cracked version of Black Gold doesn't have this problem.
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| Buying oil tanks - tank types, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
And here are the actual tanks and their purchasing windows. What I found a bit strange about this relatively unimportant graphical element is, that the AMIGA and ATARI versions have the focus in the tank pictures on the colour gradients to get the shape right, while the DOS version focuses more on the detail. Weirdly, the DOS version's tank pictures have them all aligned to the left side of the black boxes, and the cheapest one is blue instead of green. The C64 version's tanks try to do a bit of both, and for what it's worth, it's all good enough for the purpose.
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| Pipelining screens, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
What is recognizable from the AMIGA, ATARI and DOS versions, is that you can actually build the pipeline by using your keyboard's numpad, thanks to the layout of the buttons used for building. The C64 version doesn't really make it clear, what keys are you able to use, if any, to build the pipeline, since the computer doesn't have a numpad. Instead, you have a slab at the top where the text "TIME" is flashing throughout the pipeline building.
Otherwise, the main differences are more visual than user interface usability related. The unrealistic part of this entire event is, that it always takes place in an area which looks desert, even when it's in the arctic or the sea. Since most of the terrain graphics are different shades of yellow and brown, it makes some of the obstacles in the map quite difficult to see in the AMIGA and ATARI versions, but thanks to the lower colour count in the DOS and C64 versions, the terrain patterns (or lack thereof) and the obstacles are much more prominently visible. The other notable visual difference is the animated picture of oil flowing out of the pipe when you complete the pipeline, which is only included in the AMIGA and ATARI versions.
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| Burning oil field sequences, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, IBM-PC (with corrupted action screen). |
Because of this inconvenience, I haven't bothered to see, whether the C64 version has more than one possible screen for this action, which I suspect it doesn't. The AMIGA and ATARI versions do have these varied by their location. Otherwise, this sequence is rather nicely designed, with a nice part-framing for the action screen itself, and plenty of features in the info panel at the top: remaining explosives, the visual fuse timer, the oil field's condition and the number of lives you have to spare. Whenever you use an explosive, they appear on top of the occupied fire, but you can't really see much of anything in the corrupted DOS version.
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| Court judgement screens, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
Because crime never does pay, if you have chosen to involve yourself in illegal espionage activities, you will eventually be taken to court and given a harsh (but just) penalty for your actions. Similarly to the screen where you buy oil tanks, the courtroom itself loads up to be viewed for a few seconds, before the court judgement unceremoniously gets slapped in the middle of the screen. The basic layout of the courtroom itself is the same in all versions, but the C64 version has considerably less wood surface detail, and the gate is narrower. Also, in the C64 version, the judgement slab that appears is not designed as a slip of official looking paper with tickboxes for your given losses, as it is in all the other versions, but rather just a short message about your penalty.
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| Month over screens, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
Once the capital coin piles have been counted, a telegraph line is displayed at the bottom of the screen, showing all the actions all four players made in the last month. Basically, it just shows the oil wells and tanks bought, nothing else.
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| Disk operations menus, left to right: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM-PC, Commodore 64. |
The AMIGA and DOS versions share the same basic layout for this menu: top to bottom, we have load, save, credits and exit to Workbench or DOS, and apart from the exit item, all of them are displayed as non-verbal icons. The ATARI version has a completely different looking menu, which appears horizontally centered on the screen, with reLINE logo displayed in the middle of the menu window. Left side of this window has the save and load functions, and you get new game and exit to TOS on the right side. The C64 version also has the window appear at the center of the screen, but it only has load and save functions, and only in text form.
As with most 16-bit originated games, it seems like whenever there is an AMIGA version and an ATARI ST version being compared, the AMIGA version has the better use of colour, and this case is no different. I do like some of the darker colourings in the ATARI version, and the disk operations menu looks nicer, but on the whole, the AMIGA version is the higher quality option. The C64 version does its job wonderfully for being an 8-bit downgrade, but there is no denying, that some of the original game's charm has gone missing with the downgrade. Somewhat similarly, the DOS version's lack of colours does add an uncomfortable amount of grit into the graphics, but it's comfortable enough, at least as long as the game works.
1. COMMODORE AMIGA
2. ATARI ST
3. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
4. COMMODORE 64
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SOUNDS
I was afraid that nostalgia would play a greater part in deciding, which version would sound the best, because I grew up loving the AMIGA version's soundtrack. Then again, what's not to love about it - after all, the four amazing tunes, the odd jingle and the few sound effects here and there were made by none other than Karsten Obarski, the creator of the first tracker style music creation program, Ultimate Soundtracker, for the Commodore Amiga in 1987. Whether or not the soundtrack actually fits the topic of oil companies is really a matter of opinion, but the three action sequence tunes do give them some nice energy that's absent from the majority of the game.
But when I first played the ATARI ST version, I was shocked to find that it has no music at all - just some scarce sound effects, including drilling noise, explosions, phone ringing, pipelining sounds, telegram tapping and airplane noise. It really is a downer on an otherwise very comparable version against the AMIGA original, and is a serious factor when considering, which version to play in this day and age.
The DOS version could hardly be called any different, although the fact that all the sound effects are played through the single-channel beeper, tells you everything you need to know. While the beeper noises makes you thankful to not have any music in this version, it does make you wonder about not even having an optional General MIDI soundtrack, which was already a viable option in 1989 with soundcards like AdLib available.
So, in a way, it brings some odd pleasure to find out, that the old C64 still manages to offer something that some 16-bits don't. Most of music from the original soundtrack have been understandable rearranged to fit the SID chip's characteristics, and the only bit missing is the set of ascending notes, which in the AMIGA version is played when you have successfully completed an oil field's drilling. Instead of that, though, you get a new theme tune, which is played only when reLINE's logo is displayed upon booting the game. The sound effects are pretty much what and where they should be, so I would say, it's almost on par with the original, if not equal.
If my trained musician's ears are worth anything, though, I would still say the AMIGA version's soundtrack has a higher impact on the game's overall mood, thanks to its more percussive and dynamic approach, so on that reason alone, I will give the top points to the original.
1. COMMODORE AMIGA
2. COMMODORE 64
3. ATARI ST
4. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
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OVERALL + VIDEO + ETC.
From the moment I began processing this comparison, it was clear that this was to be primarily a fight between the 16-bits, but I wasn't aware how clear the differences between the three versions were, which is rather unusual for 16-bit games in general. The C64 version's existence was not much more than a nice bonus, if anything, but still, it manages to hold its own well enough in this group. Nevertheless, this is how the four versions line up in the end:
1. COMMODORE AMIGA: Playability 3, Graphics 4, Sounds 4 = TOTAL 11
2. ATARI ST: Playability 3, Graphics 3, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 8
3. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES: Playability 2, Graphics 2, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 5
3. COMMODORE 64: Playability 1, Graphics 1, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 5
Had the ATARI ST version been gifted with music, it would have gotten closer to the AMIGA original, and the C64 version wouldn't have necessarily taken a tied spot with the DOS version. But regardless of the usual lack of true logic behind the classic FRGCB mathematical scores, I believe we have a believable order this time. If you can't be bothered to play all four versions to come to your own conclusions, here is a video accompaniment by yours truly to show most of the game's important parts in action.
There was, rather unexpectedly, I might say, a remake of Oil Imperium made and released in 2012 by Swissplayers Game Studios, exclusively for the XBOX 360 and only in North America. This remake was called Oil Magnate, and all that I have been able to track of this game down is a couple of YouTube videos, because I cannot find the game from Microsoft's XBOX online game store, likely because of the region lock, but also because it might have been taken down from the service. Whatever probability of ever having a chance to play this remake I might have had, was never particularly high, but by the looks of it, I would have rather stuck with the original anyway.
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| Screenshots from the Xbox360 remake, Oil Magnate (Swissplayers Game Studios, 2012). |
That's all you're gonna get this month in terms of comparisons, because firstly, this was a lot of work, and secondly, I'm preparing the April comparisons already. For the first time in a while, it won't be concentrating on abominations, either, so there's going to be a new theme, similar to what we had in February. Until then, thanks for reading, and keep your eyes open!
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