Political Machine 2008
Damn it, can’t it be so easy in reality? Maybe it is, maybe the real secret is that no politician has broken it down into spreadsheet form and then put a spiffy UI on their campaign.
Because if they do that, they should win pretty easily, and have a pretty nice time in the process if it works as well as Stardock’s Political Machine 2008.
TPM 2008 isn’t a terribly complicated game, though depth is certainly present, and at a budget price without the budget production values. At its core, it’s a turn based strategy game, but instead of armies and combat units you have spin doctors, advertisements, and consultants. Instead of favorable terrain, there are areas which tend to be liberal or conservative, and easier to add to your Electoral College totals come election time. Three resources must be managed, being money, political capital, and clout. Capital and clout are how candidates win endorsements from special interests, or to hire agents such as spin doctors, smear merchants, and the various political tagalongs. Money, well, it’s money. Buys ads, keeps them running, builds outreach centers (each of which generates one of the three resources), and even move around the country until your stamina runs out for the turn.
Breaking up the potential monotony (which does show up sometimes) are random events. Mystery characters can show up on the map, which may hinder or hurt you. Movie directors who cheapen advertising, celebrities to spread the word, or just enthusiastic fans. There are also sporadic TV appearances you can go on, including parodies of Larry King Live, the Colbert Report, and The O’Reilly Factor. The amount of responses you have differs by the intelligence stat of the candidate you’re using.
Speaking of, every available character has stats. Intelligence, charisma, all the things one would expect when referring to candidates, and they all have positions placed before going on the trail. Some are a little poorly defined, with the support or opposition meaning left unclear, but not too often. Of course, stats and positions are available for characters you create yourself (which are highly customizable and quite fun to make), though the points at the start feel very limited for positions. Fortunately once in the game, positions are altered by speeches and advertisements.
There is a definite feeling of repetition after a few games, though, even with four scenarios. Most people will play a few quick games, but the odds of finishing the longer mode aren’t so good for most. Die-hard political junkies will probably manage it, but as politically involves as I am I never finished it myself.
The stats seem a bit party biased (also of note, no third parties!). The Republicans have a higher intelligence stat set, and Democrats a higher charisma and comeliness stat set. Not to get too political, but I have trouble believing George Bush (either one really) is on the same mental level as Al Gore. Intelligence seems more based on how effective a speaker one is, including rhetoric and just convincing people of a position, regardless of legitimacy. Small nitpick, really, since the rest of the game is pretty fun. There’s also an odd choice of including Ron Paul but not Dennis Kucinich, who is effectively the Democratic version. Plus it could have lead to the “Extremely hot British redhead wife” perk in-game.
TPM 2008 doesn’t take things too seriously, which is nice. Tooltips for everything, and when bobble heads are the avatars, you can’t expect much seriousness anyway. A nice pop-up tooltip comes with one of the create-a-candidate accessories, a videotape. Yes, VHS is in play, and tells the kids to ask their parents about it. Good stuff.
The Political Machine 2008 gets a 3.5 out of 5 rating. There aren’t any major bugs, but there’s some ambiguity about what things do, particularly attack ads and speeches, and the game gets fairly repetitive quickly. Yes, you’ll spend a lot of time in Florida, Ohio, California, New York, and Texas, especially as a liberal candidate. More random events would go a long way for the game, rather than the monotonous nature of move, speech/fundraise, advertise, rest, repeat. Still, at the budget price it can be fun, and doesn’t feel like a budget title at all.
