Political Machine 2008

Although I purchased this game after the elections, I am still enjoying it enormously. Very clever!

This is my first time purchasing a title from this series, & I have 2 say that I loved it! If you enjoy politics, you will love this game!

Can you get your favorite candidate (even if they did not make the general election) win the presidency? I will not say that it is an overly hard game if you are familiar with politics & you are willing 2 read the instruction booklet, but it is extremely fun, & the difficulty settings will let you make it as hard or easy as you like.

Enjoy!

I had played the original game from 2004, & so I felt obligated 2 try this one out.

Firstly, maybe they thought this was a good idea, but now instead of cartoon characters of the presidential candidates, they're replaced with what can only generously be called caricature 'likeness' bobble-heads that look virtually nothing like who they're supposed 2 be.

Off 2 go campaigning, you realize absolutely nothing has changed from the original's game engine. The only new additions I found were the ability 2 build two new buildings in each state (forgot their names) 2 build up political capital & political experience, which can buy political agents or gain endorsements. New issues have been added 2 reflect the 2008 season.

Everything else is exactly the same.

Once you've played this game or the 2004 edition once, you've pretty much played all you can play it.

The issues are almost haphazardly aligned & shifted mid-game, 2 a point where you could make a TV ad in a state stating your opposition 2 high gas prices, only 2 a few weeks later start 2 lose awareness there because all of a sudden they SUPPORT high gas prices. Not only is this clear insanity/stupidity since NO ONE supports high gas prices these days save 4 the occasional one or two out of ten people or more.

In the end issues don't even matter; all your speeches & ads can be about supporting the economy or supporting the environment or some other PC universal BS issue that no one could possibly oppose without being declared legally insane by the public & you'll never need 2 become a "divider".

Interviews consist basically of answering true 2 your base. That is, if you're a Republican, you answer a question with the most insanely wrong answer that is most insensitive & stupid (such as sending military forces 2 the US-Mexico border, being gung-ho about terrorism, thinking gay marriage is "icky"), whereas if you're a Democrat, you answer a question with the most insanely wrong answer that is most hippie-liberal politically correct with peace love & flowers 4 all. If you don't head primarily one way, you lose the audience & risk damage 2 your national awareness.

The campaign starts off easily, & rather than gradually increase the difficulty, it instead keeps the gameplay AI exactly the same, with the only difficulty being that suddenly your state awareness is cut back, while your opponent's stays the same.

This means that in one level in a state at the start of the game, you & your opponent can be 50-50 in the polls, & several levels later, at the very beginning, 4 no reason, you're down 2 39%-50%

And working 2 build up awareness percentages in the DOUBLE digits is almost completely impossible. You're guaranteed 2 lose all the states unless you gain all the endorsements available & spend all your money on ads & campaign buildings.


In that way, it thinks it is being more difficult with each level, when really it's only rigging the game against you, 2 a point where succeeding 2 the next level is impossible unless you cheat.


Then there's bias: Yes, even this game has bias. As much as they may deny it or make it subtle, it's there: Republican issues & Republican endorsements are more effective on neutral states than Democratic issues & endorsements.

For example: the Gun Lobby endorsement, a Republican endorsement, gives you a highly noticeable boost in almost every southern state from Florida 2 Texas. The Women's Lobby endorsement, a Democratic endorsement, gives you almost no boost anywhere but California, which is already heavily Democratic 2 begin with.

This would seemingly not be of such concern since Republicans can get Democratic endorsements & such, except 4 the fact that an opposite-party endorsement costs MORE political experience points. Example: if you're a Democrat with 10 experience points, you can afford a Democratic endorsement 4 10 points, but a Republican endorsement costs 13 points 4 you, whereas it costs 10 4 your opponent, & Democratic endorsements cost 13 4 him/her.

Much like the earlier Political Machine title, the 2008 is a tongue-in-cheek interpretation of political campaigning. Updated 4 the 2008 race with cartoony mini avatars of Sens. McCain, Obama, Clinton & other major primary candidates, the game is a decent strategy title but lacks the depth needed 2 keep you playing past your bedtime. Production was rushed 2 get the title on shelves during the election season, & that is apparent in the many misspellings & grammatical errors. Graphics are good - I personally loved their take on real-life figures like Larry King, Bill O'Reilly & Stephen Colbert - yet, underneath it all, gameplay largely consists of zig-zagging around the map raising your candidate's awareness & manipulating percentages. After just one or two campaigns, I had a technique 4 winning every time. All in all though, 4 its price, it is a decent strategy game that offers a good value, & it would be particularly fitting as a gift 4 the political junkie in your family.

As a fan of the political game genre going back 2 the Doonsbury election simulator of the mid-90s I've been excited 2 try a new one every four years & the experience always feels fairly fresh by that time. Over the last two months I've gotten a lot of replay value out of this one & there are still goals I'm setting 4 myself (winning is one thing, sweeping all 50 states is another.) The game has a nice range of candidates - from frontrunners like Obama, McCain, Hillary & Romney, 2 also rans like Ron Paul & Bill Richardson, 2 former presidents like Lyndon Baines Johnson & Teddy Roosevelt) & makes it easy 2 design more, who look & act fairly close 2 how you'd pictured them. The scenarios do provide some fun variation (like running during the civil war on a platform of pro slavery, squatters rights & opposing the transatlantic railroad, or running on an alien planet in favor of banning non-violent television & breaking away from the federation.) The game play is simple enough 2 be very accessible while still requiring strategy 2 really master. (In what order should you advertise heavily, gather an army of fund raisers, build up credibility with The Federal Tax Payers Union & the Christian Coalition, & hire political operatives like Spin Doctors & Smear Merchants? Some strategies do work better than others.) The game even has code that's easy 2 hack so you could, in theory, make Al Gore really charismatic or give John McCain the energy of a young pup by playing with the Program Files.

That said, the game is far from perfect & has some issues, some really annoying & some fairly nit picky. The worst is a fairly notorious set of bugs. Not only does the game occasionally crash & lose your progress but it has some rather unfathomable problems (for some reason telling voters you favor high gas prices is a good thing, but it's far more effective if you do it with speeches than TV ads.) Sloppy. One of my biggest beefs is also that there's one side of every issue that will make you more popular than its opposite, & its the same side in every state. For example, I understand that opposing the War in Iraq would make you more popular in Massachusetts, but would it really make you more popular in Alabama, too? Why isn't there a single issue in which one side or the other seems 2 be the correct answer? I also can't decide what I think about the fact that so many of the political issues don't seem political. Voters apparently really like a politician that favors Improving the Economy, 4 example. And alternative energy. They like alternative energy. But every politician in every party favors those things. Is the game calling voters dumb 4 responding 2 platitudes over substance, & if so, are they right?

I also have minor nitpicks like the fact that FDR is programmed into the code but was apparently left unfinished & therefore can't be unlocked without altering the source. When you do unlock him he acts like FDR but he's identical 2 Mitt Romney. Just uses the same icon. Strange.

Anyway, this game would have been perfect if they'd just laid more of the groundwork 4 it more solidly before the last minute, & then just tweaked some of the specifics 2 make it seem ripped from the headlines. They could have made high gas prices one of the core issues of the election rather than universal health care (which they're spot on with) but simply weighted them in relative importance long after both were programmed into the game (which, judging from the bizarre bugs, they probably didn't.) Still, this all seems like nitpicking because 4 a political junky like me it's full of fun stuff 2 play around with & gives you a way 2 contemplate the political scene even on a slow news cycle day.

The Political Machine 2008 puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager 4 a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch. Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds & are off on the campaign trail 2 face a host of challenges including fundraising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors & winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes 2 become President. The Political Machine is both a single & a multiplayer game - players can either compete against the computer or against others online.

The Political Machine is a strategy game that takes the real world mechanics of political campaigning & uses it 2 create an award-winning strategy game. Raise money, hire spin-doctors, win the endorsements of important groups, go on TV interviews, take out ads, fight off smear merchants & much more in your quest 2 win the 270 electoral votes you need 2 get into the white house.
Your opponents can be controlled either by human players over the Internet or by a diabolical computer AI designed by Stardock's renowned artificial intelligence team. With multiple maps & scenarios 2 choose from, a candidate editor & much more, The Poliltical Machine is not just a timely bit of fun during the campaign season but a strategy game that will stand the test of time.