The 2004 Presidential elections are turning into a spectacular display of propaganda, media frenzy, personal attacks and other forms of political warfare. As such, it’s not surprising that UBI Soft picked this time to release a game focusing on politics, which would command minimal interest at any other time. In order to increase the sales even further, the box featured Bush and Kerry, glaring at each other. The game certainly deserves all the attention it gets, and I commend UBI for their approach.
Game mechanics
The Political Machine has obviously been designed with a two-player board game in mind. It thrives in apparent simplicity of rules and great balance, but it offers an incredible strategic depth that many other titles can only dream about.
A map of the US, divided into states, represents the main playing field. You are the campaign manager of one of the candidates, and your task is to win enough states to assure you a large enough electorate vote. You can either focus on only several of the most populous states, or you can try to win the vast majority of the less inhabited ones. Because of a relatively accurate sociological model, your strategy will closely mimic that of real world candidates, be it the Republicans or the Democrats.
There are several ways to win a state. You can create different types of advertisements. You can build campaign headquarters everywhere. Or maybe you prefer traveling around and giving speeches. Each state features a number of issues the inhabitants are concerned about, and their attitudes towards these issues. You’ll need to take stance in these themes, and that position will determine the people’s attitudes towards you. Occasionally, you’ll be able to reach a nationwide audience through TV interviews or endorsements.
All that, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. You start out by selecting your candidate and your opponent; in the case of a campaign play the latter will be determined by your progress. Each candidate has several statistics, which affect his or hers efficiency at giving speeches, sounding believable, raising money and winning endorsements, among other things. Later in the game, you’ll also select a running mate, but with the exception of a financial boost, he’ll have only a very limited impact on your overall strategy.
Once you start the game, you’ll notice that each action costs you money and stamina points. Once you run out of the points allocated for each turn, you can begin the next week of campaigning, and so can your opponent. Your mere presence in a state will make you more popular there, and all other actions give you more bonuses. In addition, from time to time you’ll be able to take advantage of a random political opportunity, which usually results in a volunteer campaigner on your side, but sometimes may have negative consequences.
After the first few games, however, you’ll start noticing an entirely new layer of strategy hidden in the game. For example, talking about issues does not only affect your popularity in regards to these topics, but it also makes them more important for the voters. For instance, as a Democrat, you’ll be at a great disadvantage in the war on terror category. Instead of trying to improve your popularity there, though, you may be better off talking a lot about a different issues, such as jobs, gay marriage or abortion. If you are loud enough, these topics would become the main election issues, and you may come out on top.
Another layer of strategy is the use of helpers. You can hire several kinds of them, and they become your extensions in various states. You can use them to increase your popularity, decrease that of your opponent, or even get rid of an opponent’s helper altogether (no, there’s no killing in this game).
After forty-one weeks of campaigning, you’ll be presented with the election results. Even on medium difficulty levels, it may be quite a relief to see a certain state swing in your favor, and be presented with the victory screen and your score summary.
Technical issues
I was very happy to find a warning about the copy protection on the game box. Because of this, I made sure I purchased the game only after I located a no-CD crack, which enabled me to play it, as the copy protection includes a bug that makes it conflict with other installed software.
However, I encountered other problems I was much less pleased about. In certain respects, the game feels rushed. There is no save and load feature, and even though a single game takes only up to three hours to complete, sometimes I didn’t have that much time and was forced to quit prematurely. In addition, I never managed to get the multiplayer to work, and I was a little disturbed by such small details as the player’s name always switching back to default, which made the high score table worthless. My last gripe is a personal favorite of mine. I simply can’t understand the extraordinarily high hardware requirements, considering that this is a 2D board game with a minimum of animations.
Gameplay – 7
The Political Machine is one of the classic “easy to learn but hard to master” examples. It features several layers of strategy, some of which may not be apparent to the casual player, but which can become very important at higher difficulty settings. The balance is superb, and the interface is flawless. Overall, the game has the feel of a well-crafted product.
However, it may disappoint some political pundits. The gameplay is not terribly realistic, as it allows the candidates to take entirely outrageous stances on issues. For example, in one game where I played as the campaign manager for George W. Bush, I swayed California in my favor by aggressively campaigning in favor of environmental protection and gay marriage, while the rest of the country didn’t take notice. I also secured the endorsements of both the unions and the corporate owners, without much of a problem. Because of this, it doesn’t really matter whether you play as a Republican or a Democrat; the only difference between those two is a different starting point.
Overall, though, I felt that the designer’s intentions were good, even though not terribly well executed. The lack of realism is justified, as it helped to balance the gameplay very well. The game design is superb, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with every single game I started. Still, the gameplay suffers from lacking features and minor technological problems, which Stardock ought to fix.
Graphics – 8
The graphics in this game are very simple, but they serve their function very well. The candidates are represented in a cartoonish way, and the rest of the game follows this playful spirit as well. The main gaming board is clearly readable, and several different ways to portray the main maps help the player to keep his bearings. The only problem I encountered was that redrawing the map took a second or two on a very powerful computer, which should’ve not been the case, considering the board is a simple 2D feature, and all maps with the exception of two never change during the play.
Sound – 6
The entire game features a cheerful tune, which complements the graphics very well. However, the melody gets repetitive very fast. There are no voiceovers, and I didn’t really miss them. What disturbed me, though, was the fact that the ending cut scene has a clearly looping soundtrack. That scene is of a set length, and it is surprising to me that the developer didn’t create a melody of the same length, but instead let it end in the middle of the scene and then restart it.
Replay value – 8
The game offers a very high replay value. In addition to several levels of difficulty, you’ll be able to choose from multiple candidates, and even more may join their ranks after you unlock them in campaigns. If that’s not enough, you’ll be able to create your own candidates. Unfortunately, one of the problems I encountered here was that I was unable to join a multiplayer game, which is limited to Internet play. I would welcome a working multiplayer, as well as the option of playing by e-mail and hot seat play. Another problem worth mentioning is that the game doesn’t include any random external effects, such as a major foreign policy development, which would make the presidential campaigns a little more varied.
Overall – 7.2
The Political Machine is a very well crafted game with great balance and a surprisingly large strategic depth. It offers a long enough gameplay to last well beyond the 2004 Presidential election, and because of the lack of violence and sex, it is accessible to people of all ages. Some may go even as far as call this a political simulator and an educational tool, despite the lack of realism. Unfortunately, broken or missing features make the game feel a little rushed and detract from the level of enjoyment you may have had otherwise. Knowing Stardock, however, it is almost certain that patches and possibly additional content are on their way.
