Political Machine 2008
by Stardock
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Category: Video Games
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Product Summary
Brand: StardockFormat: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2008-06-16
Platform: Windows Vista, Windows XP
Model: 708192010660
Publisher: Stardock
Video Game Reviews of Political Machine 2008
Customer Review: Easily forgettable
Summary: 1 Stars
I had played the original game from 2004, and so I felt obligated to 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 to be.
Off to go campaigning, you realize absolutely nothing has changed from the original's game engine. The only new additions I found were the ability to build two new buildings in each state (forgot their names) to build up political capital and political experience, which can buy political agents or gain endorsements. New issues have been added to 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 and shifted mid-game, to a point where you could make a TV ad in a state stating your opposition to high gas prices, only to a few weeks later start to 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 for the occasional one or two out of ten people or more.
In the end issues don't even matter; all your speeches and 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 and you'll never need to become a "divider".
Interviews consist basically of answering true to your base. That is, if you're a Republican, you answer a question with the most insanely wrong answer that is most insensitive and stupid (such as sending military forces to 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 and flowers for all. If you don't head primarily one way, you lose the audience and risk damage to your national awareness.
The campaign starts off easily, and 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 and your opponent can be 50-50 in the polls, and several levels later, at the very beginning, for no reason, you're down to 39%-50%
And working to build up awareness percentages in the DOUBLE digits is almost completely impossible. You're guaranteed to lose all the states unless you gain all the endorsements available and spend all your money on ads and 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, to a point where succeeding to 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 and Republican endorsements are more effective on neutral states than Democratic issues and endorsements.
For example: the Gun Lobby endorsement, a Republican endorsement, gives you a highly noticeable boost in almost every southern state from Florida to Texas. The Women's Lobby endorsement, a Democratic endorsement, gives you almost no boost anywhere but California, which is already heavily Democratic to begin with.
This would seemingly not be of such concern since Republicans can get Democratic endorsements and such, except for 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 for 10 points, but a Republican endorsement costs 13 points for you, whereas it costs 10 for your opponent, and Democratic endorsements cost 13 for him/her.
Description of Political Machine 2008
The Political Machine 2008 puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch. Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges including fundraising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors and winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes to become President. The Political Machine is both a single and 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 and uses it to 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 and much more in your quest to win the 270 electoral votes you need to 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 and scenarios to choose from, a candidate editor and 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.
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