The game Oil Rush was released not long ago, a production of the developer Unigine Corp for Ubuntu, Desura and Steam. The game is a real time strategy, tower defence what happens in an apocalyptic world. Unigine’s proprietary technology has been used by the game, the game being available for the Microsoft Windows operating systems, Mac OS X and Linux. It is one of the few games that are available with Linux. The game can be tried in single player and multiplayer and has a story set in a post-apocalyptic world in which every player must fight to control the last oil reserves in the world.
Oil Rush is in addition a means of entertainment and an alarming message about the current situation of the world. Therefore, the game was considered to be controversial in terms of theme, considering that it was released no more than one year after the scandal of the accidental spillage of oil off the coast of America. The game has an alarming message, pro-nature, and production leaders said they had to pull the alarm for the current situation in the world is terrible. The entire armies who consume industrial quantities of oil fight for other quantities of oil in a bloody way, not caring about how this affects Earth.
In terms of game play, Oil Rush unfolds as a classic style strategy game. Some specific elements of tower defence games are added, currently successful. Players are tasked to protect the oil wells belonging to them and must find opponents and destroy them by all provided means. Through the use of weapons, vehicles and bombs, the player must destroy the enemy army completely and win new and new oil wells.
Oil Rush’s campaign has a main character in the person of Kevin, a recent graduate of the military academy. He is during the game a disciple of the Fleet Commander and must accomplish a series of missions to conquer the oil wells. In multiplayer, players fight fiercely against enemies or friends that engage in the game. Thus, victory depends on everyone. Each player must take care of their wells, to improve them and to protect them against the enemy while launching a devastating offensive to discover oil wells scattered across the game map.
Oil Rush’s story is seen through the eyes of Kevin, a recent graduate of the military academy, who follows his father, who died recently. The commander gives him an immediate mission: to stop by any means the Raiders, a rebel guerrilla group trying to take control of the oil wells belonging to the military. Once he gets his own fleet of combat units, Kevin (player – avatar), the mission starts. During the game, he is helped by a PDA solution that gives him tips and guides for the player to learn how to control his units and how to advance in the game. The player has to accomplish his missions as they are issued and is forced to send the units to the wells which are already owned to defend them against the enemy. Simultaneously, he must divide the remaining units to start attack groups.
Oil Rush was planned to appear in 2010, but because the producers did not finish their tasks as they wanted to make improvements to the game, its launch was delayed until 2011. Neither the distributors were not excited when Steam and Ubuntu came up with their proposal, so the game was postponed again to do more work to the single player campaign. After the final version was finally available, it was improved by bringing fixes, debugging and optimizing sites, the final product being one worth waiting for.
On January , Oil Rush was finally released, being available to be bought from online shops and digital distributors such as Ubuntu, Desura and Steam. In addition, a version of the game compatible with PlayStation 3 was also produced. Even a mobile version of the game is taken into account, but all its attributes would be reduced to fit the size of mobile phones.
Oil Rush was received well by critics, especially the video game connoisseurs who use Linux. As one of the few games that were released for it, having quite good graphics, it has been praised by many. Even when it was still in beta, the game was admired for the graphics and simple and concise game play. Many critics of video games has promoted the game and they urged RTS players to buy it as it is promoted by a manufacturer that is struggling to make games for Linux.
On Metacritic, the game Oil Rush is graded 8 and is considered to be a good game to try. Most players who have tried say it is a classic one, well defined. The game is considered to be a return to the RTS forefront, being the surprise of the year and also a pretty good game regarding the graphics, controls and story, which brings a new experience. The strategy game presents a new adventure in which players can engage if they feel the need for something different. Even the Linux operating system can enjoy a game that was specially made for it and that is fairly competitive.