Reviews

One of the very earliest spectrum strategy games, I rather enjoyed this as a kid. You play the owner of an oil company buying land to drill, surveying it, and if you strike black gold, setting up production facilities and pipelines to transport it, all the while avoiding random disasters like oil-well blow-outs and sabotage. Meanwhile, the computer opponent (Good old J.R. Ewing!) is breathing down your neck and in this game it's not long before one oil company is going to be taken over by the other. The Basic graphics are crude, the play is very simplistic, and a hell of a lot depends on luck with random disasters draining your money if it's feeling mean (Repairing a blow-out costs 20-30m, so with only 100m in the bank you soon run out of money). Saying that, there's something satisfying in hitting oil after spending millions drilling and i can still see why i regularly spent a hour or so playing it inbetween the arcade games. Overall still enjoyable, and one of those games where the basic idea has been updated many times over the years.