 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Stardock Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Stardock Entertainment | |
| Genre: | Strategy | |
| ESRB: | Everyone 10+ | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Windows XP/Vista 1 GHz Processor 512 MB Free System RAM 64 MB DirectX 9.0c 3D Video Card 1 GB Hard Drive Space DirectX 9.0c Internet connection required for multiplayer and updates. |
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are just that apathetic to the political process, you might have noticed that the US is in the middle of a Presidential election season. Politics and gaming really don’t seem like something that would mix. Indeed, there are very few political games out there, and most games that seem like they could incorporate a political system (mostly 4X titles) tend to either grossly simplify the process or ignore it. Stardock, of Galactic Civilization fame, released a political campaign simulation in 2004 titled The Political Machine. The game was fairly straightforward: win the US presidential election. Much like politics in general, The Political Machine is back four years later with a new take on political simulations. One of the smartest decisions Stardock made for this title was the price point. Launching at 19.95 in both retail and through their newly launched Impulse service (think something really similar to Valve’s Steam platform), The Political Machine 2008 manages to deliver a compelling gaming experience at a price suited for the replay value.
Again, the game is fairly straightforward. You choose a candidate, choose an opponent (or play through a campaign to unlock more historical candidates) and run an election across the United States. The issues are tuned into the 2008 political landscape, so campaigning tends to focus on the War in Iraq, the economy, gas prices, and various regional issues like border protection, Katrina relief, and farm subsidies. States are also fairly accurately keyed into their real-life demographics and party affiliations. For example, a state like Ohio could easily swing either way depending on how the candidates push issues like outsourcing, economic policy, or gun control. Strongholds generally remain strongholds unless you heavily campaign in that state and your opponent either ignores it or missteps somewhere along the lines.
The entire field of "frontrunner" candidates from the primary season is present. If you want to see what would happen if you ran Mitt Romney against Bill Richardson, you could. You also have access to John Kerry, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Other historical candidates are unlocked by playing through the campaign mode with one particular candidate. This gives you access to candidates like Grant, Nixon, Carter, Kennedy, and others.
If playing as a contemporary or historical presidential candidate doesn’t appeal to you, you can create your own custom candidate. This mode initially sounds like a great idea, but it ultimately fails in its execution when dealing with issue positions. You get 100 points to distribute among a long list of issues. However, in order to have even a “slightly favors/disfavors” position, you need to jam in at least 25 points on a particular issue. If you want to strongly run on, say, the environment, you’ll reflect that one issue and be indifferent on every other issue. This isn’t exactly a fair trade-off when creating a candidate, and really makes the create-a-candidate mode feel incomplete.
There are other scenarios outside of the 2008 Presidential election which provide different maps and different key issues. One scenario consists of the election for the leadership position in the Drengin Empire from Galactic Civilization 2, complete with a premade Drengin candidate (in the ‘War Party’). While it sounds great, the problem comes from the lack of other Drengin candidates in the mix. The ‘War Party’ basically uses the Republican candidates, and the opposition uses Democratic candidates. When I ran this scenario, I wound up using Dick Cheney as my VP candidate against my opponents John Kerry and Al Gore. This problem shows up in the other two scenarios as well. The 1860 Presidential election scenario could have been great. However, again, you’re stuck using characters unlocked in the game. While you can unlock Abraham Lincoln, you don’t have contemporaries to run against like his real-world opponent Stephen Douglas. Instead, the modern Democrats take the role of “Southern Democrats” and the modern Republicans take the role of “Northern Republicans.” Essentially, this ends up with odd scenarios like Barack Obama campaigning for slavery. The European campaign is described as being through the eyes of a high school student. In other words, the European campaign is completely tongue-in-cheek and basically developed through the eyes of a D-grade geography student. Issues include “surrendering” and “bashing America,” and country names include “Little Spain” (Portugal), “Irish Land” (Ireland), and “Japan” (located in central Europe). You don’t really miss having real candidates, and the campaign is worth a playthrough just for laughs.
Posted: 2008-07-28 15:31:44 PST