Corporate Raider: The Pirate of Wall St.

Sequel to excellent but little-known Inside Trader, Corporate Raider is also an excellent stock market simulator.

This time, however, you are owner of a company as opposed to an outside investor in Inside Trader. This role change means that you will have to adopt a different mindset and strategies than the ones you used in Inside Trader to succeed, although the goal is still to accumulate wealth. Instead of paying for insiders' stock tips, you will need to rely more on your own judgment and business acumen to pick stocks.

As the name of the game implies, one of your goals is to corner your own industry by taking over competitors. At the same time, you must be careful of them buying YOUR own company and forcing you out of the CEO chair. You can pick what business you want to be in at the beginning of the game (e.g. automobile, retailing, etc.), although they don't seem to differ from each other much in the game's context, except that some industries are more competitive than others, meaning that you will spend more time trying to take over everyone.

Overall, Corporate Raider has much to please armchair finance enthusiasts. Although its underlying model is not as solid as, say, Wall $treet Raider, news items still do affect the market, and the many not-so-legal options you have at your disposal make the game refreshing.

Review By HOTUD