Regardless of which political party you’re affiliated with, chances are you see them making campaigning moves that baffle you. You’ve probably wondered if you could do better if you had the chance. That’s the point of The Political Machine by Stardock. In it, you take on the role of one of the Republican or Democratic presidential candidates in an attempt to get them into the White House.
When you first launch the game, you’ll see a screen like the following:
Clicking “Play” on this screen will display an introductory video and leave you at the main menu:
Playing the Campaign mode allows you to choose one of several candidates, not all of which are unlocked at the start. For the purposes of this review, I chose Rudy Giuliani. The computer selected Bill Clinton.
After the candidates are selected, the game displays for the player some information about his opponent in the election:
Once you’ve learned about your opponent, you’re taken to the main game screen, which offers some in-game help to start with:
After dismissing the help screen, the game displays a map of the United States:
Once this map is up, the game really starts. On each turn, your candidate can expend his or her “stamina” to give speeches, travel to other states, etc. These actions affect the candidate’s success in the election. For example, the candidate might be told to give a speech in Florida in favor of Social Security:
Assuming that Social Security is a big issue with voters in Florida (and in this game it tends to be), this speech should improve the public’s awareness and positive perception of the candidate in that state. A similar dialog allows the candidate to purchase newspaper, radio, or television advertising to make a point about an important topic in a particular state.
Periodically, flashing stars will appear under an icon on one of the states. If the players maneuvers the candidate to one of these icons before it disappears, the candidate will have the opportunity to appear on a television show. These include spoofs of The Colbert Report, Larry King Live, and others.
To appear on the show, click yes. A short introductory video will appear, th
e text of which will give you clues as to the political leaning of the host and audience. The host will ask the candidate questions, the answers to which will affect the political repercussions of being on the show in question. Assuming you choose good answers, you will be greeted with positive news, such as the following:
Similarly, an appearance where you choose “bad” answers will hurt your political standing.
In addition to buying ads, giving speeches, doing fundraising, and appearing on television shows, you’ll also be able to construct campaign facilities to help your candidate out. There are three types of buildings you can create: Campaign Headquarters, Consulting Offices, and Outreach Centers. There are three “levels” you can build for each of these offices. The higher the level of the office, the more it costs to build, the more it costs to maintain, and the more it benefits the candidate.
A Campaign Headquarters will make poltical discussion issues available to the candidate and improve the public’s awareness of the candidate.
A Consulting Office increases the player’s “political capital” and allows for the “random events” that occur in the state to be identified as positive or negative.
An Outreach Center increases PR clout and increases awareness of the candidate in the state and/or surrounding region.
Once a “level 1″ structure of one of the above types is built, it may be upgraded to a higher level (up to level 3), making it of more value to the candidate.
Earlier, random events were mentioned. Periodically, a yellow question mark will appear on the game map. If the player moves the candidate there before the question mark disappears, a “random event” happens. These can be positive, such as scoring a large campaign donation or obtaining a supporter. They can also be negative, uncovering someone who could be detrimental to your campaign or a “time waster” who sucks up your remaining stamina.
Around the middle of the game, the player will be asked to select a running mate from the list of available (and unlocked) candidates:
As in the real election, the selection of a running mate can help or hinder the campaign. Note that one running mate (or candidate) is “Lord Kona”, an alien creature. I’ve actually won elections with him.
You can move your running mate around to help increase your popularity in a state, just as you move the main candidate around.
As you build momentum, you’ll be able to seek endorsements from groups like labor unions, gun owners, etc., to help you appeal to voters. Generally speaking, the more Community Outreach headquarters you have running, the more political clout you’ll have to get these endorsements.
That’s pretty much all there is to the gameplay. You’ll move the candidate around, raising funds, running ads, making speeches, building headquarters, recruiting allies, and trying to stay ahead of your opponent in the polls. At the end of week 41, there’s an election. If you’re playing a Republican candidate, as I did in this sample game, the red states are the ones you won. The blue states were won by your opponent. As you can see below, I lost this particular election:
After the map is displayed, you see the candidate hanging its head in shame:
I played the same scenario again later, making better use of my political cloud and advertising, with a much different result:
As I mentioned earlier, I even won with the alien “Lord Kona” once:
If you play the game in campaign mode, each time you run the same candidate, the computer matches you up with a better opponent. Taking Rudy Giuliani all the way to the end of his campaign run meant beating historical figures like Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, and John F. Kennedy.
The game offers a variety of options to tailor the experience, including changing the resolution, turning off music, changing sound volume, setting up auto save, etc.
While this is undoubtedly a simplified version of a national presidential election campaign, it does provide for a reasonable amount of depth and strategy. I found that a strategy which worked well for me was to expend my early campaign funds establishing a series of Community Outreach offices. The political clout these generated allowed me to accumulate endorsements a bit quicker than my opponent, which helped turn a number of states to my side without having to visit them or expend advertising money. Once I began building endorsements, I focused on getting political operatives in the key states like New York, Florida, Ohio, California, and Texas. After that, it became a question of drumming up as much support as I could, wherever I could, using speeches and ads.
The television appearances might be the trickiest part of the game. For each show, you’re asked a number of questions. The answers you give to those questions will either help or hinder your election. In several cases, I chose answers that seemed to fit with the show host’s viewpoint, only t
o find that I lost favor with the voters. In other cases, I made choices I thought would appeal to voters, only to find that they didn’t.
An entire game of The Political Machine 2008 can be played fairly quickly compared to many simulations. Depending on the random events and such, an entire election process can be played in about an hour.
This game typically retails around $20 (US). Given the replayability, level of depth, and the unlockable content, that’s not a bad value.
On a scale of 1-10, where a 10 is a title like Half Life 2, this game rates around a 6-7.
