Ludography
58/100
Players6 ratings
50/100
Critics2 reviews
More scores
Metacriticcritics
67/100
Metacritic usersuser score
65/100
GameFAQsJust Right
2.76/5
Player reviews
58% positive549 reviews
Runs on
Windows, Mac, Linux
Price
Free

Where to get it

Oil Rush cover

2012 · Unigine Company · Indie · Post-apocalyptic

Oil Rush

PlayStation console exclusive

Oil Rush is a naval strategy game that takes place in a world where nuclear war has melted the ice caps, changing the face of the planet forever. Oil Rush offers unique gameplay, avoiding micromanagement of every single unit, while still providing full control over all important aspects of strategy and economy.

Released
25 January 2012
Platforms
AndroidLinuxPlayStation 3WindowsmacOS
Genres
IndiePost-apocalypticReal-time strategyStrategyTower defense
Developers
Unigine Company
Publishers
Unigine Company
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
Bird view / Isometric
Themes
Science fiction
Engine
Unigine
Country
Russia
Languages
English, German, Russian
Time to beat
10hmain story16hcompletionist

About

Oil Rush is a tower defense real-time strategy game developed by UNIGINE Holding S.à r.l. using their Unigine engine technology. Set in a flooded, post-apocalyptic world, the game consists of players fighting over control of the world's last remaining oil reserves. The game was released as a digital download for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X.

This theme has been viewed as controversial by some, especially as Oil Rush was originally intended to be released only a little more than a year after the much publicized Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The game itself actually delivers an environmental warning message, with Unigine's CEO Denis Shergin commenting that "Fuel devouring armies that fight over the last drops of oil and pollute already trashed world is nothing but doublethink. That is a warning environmental message we'd like to deliver in a single-player campaign."

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game combines elements of strategy and tower defense as players must defend and attack oil rigs through the use of armed platforms against hordes of enemy watercraft and other attack units. The campaign's story puts the player in the shoes of Kevin, a graduate of the military academy and disciple of The Commander in a story-driven succession, while multiplayer allows players to go head-to-head against friends or online opponents in a strategic manner. Players are forced to maintain, upgrade, defend, and attack oil rigs put in various locations on each map.

Story

In Oil Rush, the player is shown the viewpoint and story of Kevin, a recent graduate and serviceman, following in his father's footsteps who has recently died. He is almost immediately tasked by The Commander to suppress a rebel faction, The Raiders, who are trying to take control of the oil rigs in the army's possession. Now in control of a fleet of combat units, an in-game guidance PDA issues the player basic instructions to help learn how to complete the set of objectives they are assigned, such as deploying only 25 percent of the combat units, production of armed defense units on oil rigs in your control, and dividing forces into groups to attack opposing rigs simultaneously.

Development

Although originally planned to be released in the fourth quarter of 2010, the game was later delayed until March 2011 due to more development time being needed as well as more time to negotiate with potential publishers. It was then further delayed until June 2011 to allow more time to work on the single-player campaign. The ability to pre-order the game has been available since March 2, 2011.

Unigine worked on development throughout 2011, providing incremental updates to the beta builds for those who pre-ordered the game. Over time, noteworthy fixes and updates came through in the form of improved gamma control on Windows and Linux platforms, fixing anti-aliasing issues, debugging, performance optimizations, usability fixes, subtitles, voice-overs, and 3D capability for users with certain high-end graphics cards, amongst much more. Each update was rolled out in around two weeks of the last, continuing improvement on the game. In the last update before release, version 0.98, Unigine's changelog noted that it had included splashes during the introduction of its partners, including NVIDIA and RakNet.

Reception

Since its announcement, the game has garnered much attention from Linux-oriented tech sites and blogs, the most notable of which would be Phoronix and received much praise for its graphics and gameplay even during its beta testing stages. Phoronix featured many articles about it for over a year and a half, before releasing their release date announcement and unofficial review of the game, going on to say, "Even if you're not the biggest Linux gamer or a real-time strategy fan, I still would recommend picking up this $20 USD Linux-native title on the basis of supporting Unigine Corp as one of the leading Linux-friendly commercial game studios".

On the review aggregator website Metacritic, Destructoid's Maurice Tan reviewed the game and gave it a rating of 8.0 out of 10. He noted, "What could have been a messy title merely created to showcase the Unigine Engine has turned out to be a surprisingly polished and deep strategy game. Oil Rush isn't just a joy to behold in action, but manages to make an old genre feel fresh while looking the part." Later in the review, he said of the game that it was "one of the first strategy surprises of the year" and that the "simple design of hop-skip-jump platform fights hides layers of depths that make it an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master arcade naval warfare experience."

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
PlayStation 31 January 2012Worldwide
Windows25 January 2012Worldwide
Linux25 January 2012Worldwide
macOS25 January 2012Worldwide

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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.