Oiligarchy!

Oiligarchy is game where... *sigh* you know what, just go play it first.

Okay, so... where to even begin? I'll start with my personal experience playing. Alright, so, knowing in advance that there are multiple endings to the game, I went through with one goal in mind: get in, grab as much power and as much cash as possible, and then hand off the seat of power to the environmentalists while I make away with a wad of cash. And I got exactly what I wanted. The only real challenge is keeping everything balanced in the white house in order to create the illusion of democracy. Yes, I actually accomplished this by creating a solid mix of both environmentalists and oil representatives during a term in which my company held the power. During the following election, I pumped over $1000 into both parties and managed to get a senate/house/whatever with all oilers. After that, it was no problem pushing the oil addiction up to 100%, which allowed me to get away with anything, rape the peoples of the world, and the Alaskan wildlife reserves, and the rainforest, and the oceans. I was able to, within 5 years time, drill in every single oil well in the world. During the next 5 years, I took it easy and watched the price of oil skyrocket, and my wallet hit the $1 billion mark. After that, I settled down, let the environmentalists take over, and they fixed everything within 2 presidential terms, and I retired with $1.88 billion, and managed to leave a pretty big mark on the world.

I laughed the entire time. It was fun, and easy. My only regret is that I was born in 1991, and not the 1920's, and as a result, I couldn't take over the world in real life. Also, in the game, I seemed to live on indefinitely, as if I wasn't any one person in particular, but simply, the face of the oil industry, which in and of itself implies that the company was handed down from generation to generation, which, considering the money I pumped into Nigerian armed forces probably made me a Nigerian prince; or, that a combination of money, power, and oil makes you immortal.

I think the funniest part about this game is that it's, sadly, quite accurate. The oil industry is just one of many big huge scary companies that have grabbed Washington by the balls with one hand, while simultaneously shoving the other up its ass to work it like the world's largest sock puppet. I think one of the biggest, edgiest moments of the game is when, if you're in control at the right time, you get to engineer a terrorist attack to rally support for sending troops into the middle east to defend your interests... I mean, american interests... of course by that, I mean oil wells. It was certainly one of the big "they just went there" moments of the game to me at least.

So, all in all, this game is terrible. Terrible in the sense that the game makes an absolute mockery of everything it can about the oil industry with low blows, and touchy topics. As a game, in and of itself, well, it's a flash game, so it's limited in that aspect, but for a flash game, I'd give it an A. And for the overarching purpose in making the game and whatnot... pretty good. Let's be fair, it's not totally realistic, and more just a farce based on conspiracy theories, right?

... right?

Regardless, the game really captures what it feels like to be an american in support of... pretty much anything that makes sense these days, and it does that by giving the player the perspective of the bad guy, which is a cool way to deliver such a narrative.