The landscapes, water, and explosions are absolutely phenomenal. All of this is shown in a 3-D world that works extremely well. The best example of the 3-D look is machine gun fire from your platform’s defense buoys. It looks like the rounds are coming straight at you if they miss their intended target. Although this game is coming from a benchmark company, I was very surprised on how good this game looked. This is by far the most impressive part of the game. The smooth running nature of the game could be attributed to the lack of micro management with individual units but again, even if that is the case, no one can ignore how good this looks. It could use a little more diversity in the game’s maps but with how good the current ones look, it is a minor gripe.
The sound contains two polar opposites. The sound effects, ambient noise, and background music, for the most part, are very good. The sound effects in particular work very well and scale to the upgraded units as the game progresses. Along the same lines, when certain air units explode, they make a louder explosion noise and the screen shakes to help bring the player into the game. Unigine Corp. did a great job with this but the focus will not be on the good.
Unfortunately, on the other end of the spectrum, the voice acting is downright disappointing. Each character’s dialogue is hard to listen to and after a while, gets so annoying that you hold the mouse button down to skip through all of the cut scenes. Not to mention the fact that the subtitles have some inexcusable grammatical errors. Now I’m not one to be the spelling or punctuation police but there were several points where I thought to myself, "Did they even proofread this stuff?" I’m not asking all stories in video games to be like Mass Effect but this really brought my experience down.
Oil Rush Multiplayer/Replay Value
Oil Rush also includes a both a Quick Play mode (Multiplayer against bots) and a dedicated Multiplayer mode. These are pretty straight forward with several maps to choose from, each with their own obstacle to make the match unique and interesting. The big gameplay problem I have with the multiplayer (vs. bots, humans may be different) is basically, it is a race to the platforms and whoever controls the most platforms end up winning the game. Micro-management, harassment, and a general focus on the game at hand are not there. I spend most of my time looking at the mini-map figuring out where my next move will be rather than what is going on with the main screen. A general issue with the multiplayer is the fact that you cannot find anyone to play with. I tried for several days to test out the multiplayer during peak times after release only to find no one to play. I did find one person to try to link up with to play a match but the connection would only hold for about a minute and drop. Don’t get me wrong. I was able to test the multiplayer, but only because GDN got more than one copy for review. If you don’t have someone that you personally know who has the game, then you may have trouble finding an open game. This is a huge problem currently because I believe a lot of the longevity and fun in the game could come from its multiplayer.
Conclusion
Unigine Corp. did a good job in developing Oil Rush. If it wasn’t for the terrible voice acting, wonky unit control scheme, and lacking multiplayer, this would be an amazing game. Some may say that by being able to select the percentage of units to send to the next platform should be enough control, I will strongly disagree. RTS games require control and that is something I felt I did not have in Oil Rush. With that said, the graphics are what make this game enjoyable and entertaining to play. By being so visually stimulating, it kept me engaged enough to fire up the next mission (skipping the cut-scenes of course). But once a person goes through the Story mode, I don’t know if there is enough fun left in the Multiplayer and Quick Play modes in their current state to keep someone coming back. The $20 price tag seems a bit steep for this game right now, but I would still recommend checking it out if it goes on sale and there is a bigger multiplayer community.
This review is based on the full, retail version of the game provided by the developer for review purposes.
