If you like Tycoon type games then I have one today for review that you might just like, it is actually perfect for the times we are living in right now. The game is called Big Oil, and it is from our friends at TriSynergy. As the name suggests it is about oil, making money in oil to be more precise, and doing it the tycoon way. There are a lot of aspects to the Big Oil game, like the addition of natural disasters, historical scenarios and multi player mode as well. Big Oil is an interesting game, and I have a few screen shots for you and three short in game movies as well, c’mon and check it out…

Big Oil PC Game

Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos

Sponsor: TriSynergy

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

Description:

BIG OIL leads you into times of the oil industry pioneers.

Start your career in one of the historical scenarios or face the challenge of modern times. Found your very own company and lead it to the biggest oil imperium on earth.

Whether in single player or multiplayer, demonstrate your strategic ability to become the next "Anaconda" Rockefeller of the BIG OIL world.

"Build an oil empire. Turn crude to cash."

Features:

Seventeen historical and modern scenarios from the beginning of the 20th Century until today.

Challenging game modes such as historical scenarios, easy or advanced mode, single-player or multiplayer up to 6 players.

Extra class graphics with the 3D-Oxygene-Engine.

Over 300 different buildings and vehicles out of 3 centuries.

Exact historical events such as earthquakes, wars and other catastrophes with direct influence on your company.

Complex simulation of real cities like Los Angeles with job market, infrastructure and schools. 

A Better Look at Things

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TriSynergy was nice enough to send me a retail copy of Big Oil, so I have some nice box shots fro you as well. The box is very eye catching, there’s a oil strike on the front of the box that’s sure to grab your attention while sitting on the shelf.

The back of the box has the same features and description as I already listed along with some screen shots as well.

The front of the box open up actually to show you a basic preview of the games premise, and some more nice screen shots.

Upon opening the box we find just the Big oil CD, with your CD Key attached to the paper CD sleeve.

The Big Oil packaging is very good and very attractive, it is also very informative as well. The front that opens up is almost like a mini tutorial for the game, you can see quickly by glancing at it what the basics are of Big Oil. In the time we are in where Oil prices seem to keep rising, it’s kind of cool to be able to become an Oil Barron and be able to fantasize about you having the ability to control the price or Oil or gas.

Installation and Testing:

Installation is easy, just pop the disc in, enter your key and away you go. There really isn’t a title screen, just a menu screen when you click the Big Oil desktop icon. From the menu you can start the game or access the game manual to learn more about Big oil and how to play it.

When you hit the start game button, the game quickly loads and you are greeted with a gas pump as your menu. There are options for Single-player, and Multi-player modes along with Options and Quit. If you look closely near the bottom on the right side, it looks like someone scratched a word into the pump, it says Credits, that would be the button to view the credits for Big Oil.

Clicking the options button take you to the games setting such as Sound, Camera movement and display settings. Big Oil can make use of higher end video cards for all the nice eye candy that they provide.

Clicking the Single-player button you then have the ability to select the type of game you wish to play, there are many scenarios, most are some type of historical setting. You also get to pick the city in which you start or your base city, and there is a brief description of the scenario as well.

After you pick what you want to play, then you can pick who you want to play. You can enter your name, pick your color and also pick and icon for your company. There are also options to select your skill level and you can select the skill levels of your computer opponents as well.

Installation and Testing Continued:

As soon as you start the game you are greeted by your assistant, he gives you a quick overview of what you have to do in the game, or an objective. Here we also can see the interface, which can be tricky at times, there is a few second lag between the time you hover over and icon and the time it displays a description of what the icon is, kind of annoying actually. Speaking of annoying, your assistant can be very annoying throughout the game, he pops up all the time with questions you need to answer, you’ll see him pop up a few times during the game clips I have for you, he pops a many times in the 30 seconds each clip is. You can turn the assistant off but you really need to know what you are doing as he does alert you to important things going on in the game.

The first thing that happen in the game of course is that you drill for oil. The graphics are actually really good, I have the settings maxed as I am using a 7800GTX video card and there are no lags of skips no matter how much is going on at a time in the game.

After a minute or two you strike oil, WOOHOO! One nice thing is that you can speed up, slow down and pause time with the buttons located under the date on the user interface. This really helps later on in the game when you need to research and develop new technologies to advance on, and also when building things as well.

After we strike oil, we need to set up an oil rig, then build storage and finally run pipelines to store the oil we find. I found you can’t chain the storage tanks together, you need to send a separate pipeline to each one, but you can chain the pipelines together. One pipeline can branch off into 5,10, 15 or more sections to separate storage tanks.

Installation and Testing Continued:

Big Oil is actually fairly hard, even on the easy setting, and if you are really not a ‘tycoon’ style game fan then you might get bored very quickly, I know I did. Game play is fairly easy, but some parts aren’t really explained good enough, there are options to do certain things like taking over a company or merging with them if you own a lot of their stock, but I have owned 90% of a companies’ stock and still couldn’t do the merger or takeover.

Also, when purchasing stock you would think that when you buy stock in a company you own it, but somehow that doesn’t work, if you try and buy stock in the same company again all the stocks you already had disappear and you only have the amount you just purchased, shouldn’t they be added together?

Ok, well now I have three in game videos for you, there are of various things, they were done with FRAPS. There are links to all of them to view them in Windows Media Player as well to see them a bit bigger. You’ll need to resize the picture if you watch in WMP, as it becomes pixelated at full screen.

The first video is basically just a run though of the world. Click HERE for direct link.

The second video is of purchasing rights to drill and an oil rig appearing. Click HERE for direct link.