The Political Machine

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $8.72

Features:

• Become a campaign manager to lead your candidate's race for the White House
• Take on all the hot issues of the 2004 elections, including tax cuts, the war, and abortion
• Choose from pre-existing candidates or design your own
• Give speeches, take out advertisements, solicit endorsements, and select your election staff
• For one player or online multiplayer options

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Republican Propaganda Game [Posted on 2005-09-12]
This game is ok as a game and midly entertaining but I resent how obvious it is that the creators are republican and are lying about people's attributes in this game.

Such as republicans integrity being higher (almost all) than democrats. Or the media bias being consistantly higher for democrats when studies have proven that there are more positive stories about republicans in the press and more negative stories about democrats.

Also blatant historical inaccuracies such as washington being a republican, the republican party didn't even exist until Lincoln and back then the republicans were the progressive party so in todays terms he would be a democrat.

The Political Machine: Political Thriller that Just Stopped Short of Divine [Posted on 2005-12-26]
The Political Machine is not like most PC games. It is not a war game. It is not an economic game. It is not about world or european history. It is about American history, about American elections, and about American leaders. It presents a very accurate portrayal of the election process. You can pick from the various 2004 possible Presidential candidates or design one yourself and use it in campaign mode to unlock future possible candidates (Condeleeza Rice) and historical ones (Washington, Roosevelt) You post ads, give speeches, establish campaign HQs, gather endorsements, pick a Vice President, and talk to the media. You do everything which candidates for president in our day and age may do. However, as the game portrays the 2004 election, it will gradually go out of date in terms of modern candidates. It is my personal hope that Ubisoft decides to make a sequel to this game for 2008. The reason I claimed that the game stops just short of divine is because you run for president, but then what? Win or lose, the game ends. You do not experience being the president, nore do you experience losing and going back to being a senator, governor, etc. Though, since I have yet to see such a game, I can hardly fault The Political Machine for lacking these aspects. Some claim that the game has Republican bias by classifying Washington as a Republican when that party did not exist at that point. However, we have had two main ideologies in this country, liberal and conservative, and they have evolved and changed parties several times. Washington was center-right in mindset. He is classified historically as a Federalist along with John Adams, a conservative. The Federalists later became the Whigs, the party of such notable men as Zachary Taylor, which then became the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and Ike. The Democrats evolved from the Democratic Republicans, the party of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, and then became the Democrats, the party of FDR and Jackson. Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic here. I would recommend this game to anyone with political leanings, for it is not so out of date yet.

Gets old quick. Very quick [Posted on 2006-10-25]
The game starts out as a very quick, lively game involving campaigning to become president. While put out in time for the 2004 Election season, you can choose among a cadre of many different politicians, from modern senators, to ex-presidents, to "legends" such as George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, etc.

The routine is a very fun, turn-based thing in which you must travel across the country, build campaign headquarters, give speeches, pay for ads, hire political operatives (such as smear merchant to lower your candidates approval in the state, or even intimidators who raise your approval by 5% per turn) or political capital to gain the support of organizations such as the NRA, NAACP, Women's groups, environmental groups, etc, and fundraisers.

However, as soon as election night comes around and you either win or lose, that's pretty much the end of the game. There's no replay value in the game, as everything goes exactly the same way and can be fully accomplished within an hour

One of the best, most interesting [Posted on 2007-05-21]
Games Of All Time!!!

First off, let me say that it isn't just a political game, it's a RTS game, with Politics and Presidential elections in it.

It has equal choice between both parties, and plenty of internet downloads/fantasy/ random issues and issue importance to keep the game fresh as awlays, and it's really fun.

I deffinently say one of the best.

A good political simulator, but missing basic promised features. [Posted on 2008-03-18]
After looking at [...], anybody would assume that this game was going to be the hit of the century (at least for politics fans!!). I've seen false advertising before, but this is just wrong. They promised so many features that don't even exist. I'll try to keep things "fair and balanced" by telling you what's really in the game. You can then make your decision about purchasing.

Gameplay
8/10
Basically, you look at a map of the US, click a state, and choose which action to take. There are only 5 actions to take, by the way. The game is very fun to play, don't get me wrong, but it is not the most realistic thing ever. It is super easy to get California to go Republican, and super easy to get Texas to go Democratic. They say each state will have different opinions about the issues, which is kind of true, the Republican states(in real life) care about the war in Iraq, and the Democratic states(in real life) care about the war on terror.... not exactly what I had hoped for. Then a few messed up states care solely about the enviornment (Not that the enviornment isn't important, but they literally ONLY care about the enviornment) . The game is super fun to play the first few times, but once you win a few elections it slowly starts to become more and more boring.

Online
0/10
It is super confusing to connect to the online portion of the game, I had to contact tech support, who had me change settings, which I must change every time I want to play. Then when you do get connected, there are usually no games. If you are on at "prime time" you MIGHT be able to get in a game. If you do, the lag is terrible, even if both players have cable internet.

Replay Value
3/10
Once you play 5 times, the game really loses its fun. They promise to keep things updated, but since its release they have only put out one update, which only fixed a few typos. The campaign is fun, but gets repetitive.

Overall, this is a very fun game, Amazon has it for 10 bucks. This game is worth around 5 bucks, but no more, and that's if you like politics, if you don't, don't bother. If you are looking for something more in depth, check out "President forever," which goes for 12 bucks, but is harder to use. Personally, I prefer The Political Machine.

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