The Political Machine 2012 Review

The influential Keynesian economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said that "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory," and developer Stardock apparently hopes that holds true to gaming as well. The newest installment of their long-running Political Machine franchise still delivers the quick, addicting bouts of light strategy and roleplay that made the 2008 release so enjoyable, but at the same time, it's so similar that you could be forgiven for thinking you were playing the same game. It's thus a little tempting to see this lack of change as a critique of politics as a whole. But considering that Stardock also removed some features for this new release, it's hard to see The Political Machine 2012 as anything other than a step back for the franchise.

Still, The Political Machine does a good job of including almost all the major movers and shakers of the contemporary political scene as playable characters, but it’s regrettable that there’s no option to pull a Ross Perot and run as an Independent. The candidates themselves take the form of the same ever-grinning bobble-head figures from previous games, and their design manages to walk a fine line that inspires laughter without offending either side. Players of a Democratic bent will smirk at the oh-so-serious mug of Al Gore (complete with a pitiful charisma rating), and Republicans might enjoy boosting Donald Trump's famed toupee all the way to the nation's highest office.

It's a shame, though, that we're stuck with the rogues' gallery of contemporary political personalities ranging from Minnesota's Al Franken to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In the past, you could butt heads with Barack Obama as Teddy Roosevelt or as the evil alien Lord Kona from Stardock's Galactic Civilizations franchise; here, Stardock bows to dull reality and the game's personality suffers for it. Even worse, campaigns (as in the sense of a story) and their accompanying maps no longer exist in the single-player mode, so don't expect to ride your votes to victory in Lord Kona's Drengin Empire as you did in 2008.

That's why it's much more fun to create your own candidate, particularly if your ideas don't fit neatly into predictable Democratic or Republican platform. It's even more fun to play as an extremist from either side and to set the 11 traits that affect your performance on TV appearances and speeches (such as charisma, appearance, and wealth) at absurdly low levels for a challenge. Support gun control but all for displays of senseless violence in video games? You can run with that. You can also set the length of the campaign season for each match (which especially comes in handy for extending the game's longevity through the multiplayer mode), and it's sometimes fun to see how your endorsement of controversial positions holds up over different lengths of time.

In fact, almost all of the big issues of the day are here, ranging from the old standbys like illegal immigration and capital punishment to more timely powderkegs like the proposed military strikes on Iran and the controversy surrounding Chick-fil-A. That cornucopia of polarizing issues might eventually prove detrimental to the star-spangled republic itself, but they provide a little more excitement over the last election's comparatively tame issues aside from the Iraq War.

One of The Political Machine's strengths is the way it spotlights the game-like nature of the election process by rendering the map of the United States into a sprawling red and blue chessboard of sorts. It's a little boring in appearance -- some network news programs have arguably done a better job with similar visuals -- and battleground states sometime get so cluttered with icons that it's difficult to tell which ones belong to each candidate. That's important, because the icons signify your candidate's presence in each state. Every turn the candidates jet to different states and focus on the issues important to each. Promoting their agenda is simple: they give speeches, build campaign buildings that generate revenue, place newspaper ads, and hire agents. Each activity requires stamina, and once you’ve used up yours it's your opponent's turn. It's a smart move, since it keeps the speed of the turn-based gameplay from getting bogged down with micromanagement.

But in case you're worried that all this smacks of a game that takes itself way too seriously, fear not. The Political Machine 2012 allows for brazen displays of flip-flopping that would make Mitt Romney blush, all for the sake of votes and smashing your opponent into the ground. It's thus not a strict simulation; you're better off thinking of The Political Machine 2012 as a form of interactive satire. There's no debating; and in fact, there's an air of cynicism about the whole affair that suggests that votes are won through sweet-talking and flashy shows rather than the intelligent presentation of facts. This means you could rag on same-sex marriages in one state and trumpet your support for them in another--provided, that is, that you're opponent hasn't beat you to them.

There's thus still considerable strategy involved when this happens, especially when you're head to head with a real opponent in the multiplayer mode, but it has very little to do with adherence to your platform than your ability to pander to the issues beloved by the state you're in at the time. That changes a bit if your opponent has already given a speech or run an ad on a particular issue, but you can generally avoid losing those same voters by focusing on a key position your opponent hasn't covered. It's still possible to win if you stick to your guns (or propose banning them, for that matter), but such a risky strategy usually hinges on having raised much more money than your opponent. The only real problem is that matches tend to play out the same because of the values of each state; the only change is who wins the votes over first.

All of which was true of the 2008 version, too. Indeed, The Political Machine 2012 mirrors its forerunner so completely that you could place screenshots of the maps from each game side by side and find yourself unable to point out many differences between the two. Even the "Barry King" talk show remains in place for the game's TV appearances, despite the fact that Larry King Live has been off the air for two years now. If anything, the loss of the campaign and figures from America's history (not to mention poor Lord Kona) render it less playable than 2008's outing. Some tweaks have been made to the issues each state cares about and the tutorial aesthetic obviously channels Shepard Fairey’s famed “Hope” poster from the last election, but the lack of any significant improvements or additions leave The Political Machine 2012 feeling like little more than a quickie expansion pack to the last release.

Source : ign[dot]com