forbesChildren need supervision. Left alone, they wander down dark streets or into the backs of purported candy vans. This game is a powerful argument that ideas need supervision, too. Sometimes they wander off drawing boards and into game stores.

I have never known what to make of Forbes: Corporate Warrior. It hardly seems to exist, and sometimes I think I dreamed up the whole thing.

It’s a financed themed first-person shooter from 1997, depicting a world where Wall Street cuts the crap and just has corporations literally battle each other in a virtual reality environment. As a start-up entrepreneur, you must jack in to the simulation, fight your way to the top, and make money. When targeting an “enemy” (a rival business you wish insolvency upon) you hurt them by stealing their customers away. This requires a bit of thought rather than just blasting away. For example, if your opponent is selling boutique products but his customers want cheap goods, Price Slicer missiles will do massive damage.

You’ll be bored of Forbes: Corporate Warrior in five minutes. Buy an egg timer or something.

This isn’t much of a game. You just go up to enemies, bankrupt them, move on, and repeat the process until the game just…ends. Movement feels clunky and slow. Despite the barrage of finance buzzwords and the horribly overcomplicated UI, there’s not much skill to playing Forbes: Corporate Warrior. “Strategy” is moronically simple: you’re either strong enough to beat an enemy or you’re not.

Although the concept art between levels is nice, the actual in-game graphics have all the aesthetic appeal of a Windows 95 era CAD modelling program. This game looks like shit, there’s no way around, past, or through it. Levels resemble poorly-textured chessboards, with hideous backgrounds and animation. The enemies are crappy geometric shapes.

I regard Forbes: Corporate Warrior like I regard Bible Adventures: a real novelty game – not really playable but it definitely possesses kitsch value. I guess this is what they call poor execution of a great idea. Or great execution of a terrible idea.

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