I downloaded “The Political Machine” the other day when I saw the price was low.
Geez, this was a depressingly bad game. Your actions in trying to win the Presidential election are phenomenally limited in scope and, to be honest, lacking in logic or common sense in a lot of ways. As long as you keep hitting the big EV vote states you always win. There’s no debates. There’s no effect at all to being inconsistent in your positions. There’s no primary process. There’s no party dynamics. There’s no option to fight an election other than 2008 (in the current version.) It’s a shareware game at best.
This game blows.
Is there a GOOD Presidential election game out there?
This probably isn’t what you’re looking for, because it’s an actual board game and not a computer game, but I really like “1960: The Making of a President.” It’s a simulation of the 1960 presidential race between Kennedy and Nixon, and it’s a lot of fun while still managing to include some relatively realistic factors (media endorsements, travel time between states, financial constraints, etc.).
Aww… I wanted to recommend 1960: The Making of a President. It is by far the best election game I’ve ever played. Admittedly that’s not saying much since it’s the only election game I’ve ever played that isn’t terrible but 1960 is absolutely spectacular. It was my favorite game of any type that was released last year.
Try President Forever + Primaries 2008 by 80soft. It’s a download for $20. Very deep, includes 2008 with primaries, many previous elections. Also customizable, with an active user base creating new scenarios (earlier US presidential elections, state elections, and what-ifs).
Well, we disagree, RickJay. I just finished (literally not half an hour ago) writing my review of it for my pub and I quite liked it. But you have to view it for what it is.
It’s a game designed to indicate, in less than an hour on any form of decent machine, how to accumulate electoral vote totals sufficient to win the Presidency. It’s not an attempt to provide a deep simulation or any form of structural analysis of the system. I will say it gets brutally hard at the higher levels of difficulty but it’s worth playing.
I went up against Carter and discovered oil prices were a HUGE deal to the public while global warming and alternative energy were a non issue. That’s not the 2008 election.