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The Political Machine
The Political Machine
Ubi Soft
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"The Political Machine"

From Courtney Marchelletta,
Your Guide to Computer Sim Games.
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Guide Rating - rating

The Bottom Line

"The Political Machine" is a simplistic simulation of the real political world. You simply oppose or are in favor of the issues, without touching upon issues where you would need to make a game plan (such as how would you stimulate the economy). The gameplay becomes repetitive, after only a few hours of play.
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Pros
  • multiple political figures to choose from
  • four modes of play
  • create a candidate
Cons
  • repetitive gameplay

Description

  • Developer: UbiSoft
  • Release Date: August 2004
  • Get on the campaign trail and address issues that are important to each state.
  • Play an already designed candidate based on a political figure, or create your own.
  • Create awareness by being interviewed on TV by national shows, like Barry King Live and 60 Seconds.
  • Win endorsements from special interest groups, including the National Gun Owner's Association.
  • Four game modes: Quick Play, Campaign, Fantasy, and multiplayer.
  • Give speeches, run newspaper ads, commercials, and employ insiders to give yourself the edge.

Guide Review - "The Political Machine"

Upon starting "The Political Machine" you'll need to choose one of four gameplay modes, Quick Play, Campaign, Fantasy, and multiplayer. The campaign mode requires you to win against a series of other candidates. Quick play is just what it implies. Let's you pick a character and your opponent, and then get to the campaign.

The game screen is a map of the United States. There are multiple modes you can use to view the map. You can look by awareness level or see if you have the popular vote in which states. You can zoom in and out as you want, although there isn't much point, other than to see the characters a little closer.

To raise awareness and gain popularity among the voters, you'll travel from state to state giving speeches, raising funds, running ads, and trying to gain the support of special interest parties. That's pretty much it to the gameplay. You'll either oppose or favor issues, and let the voters know where you stand. Each state will give you statistics on the feelings of the voters, so you know if favoring or opposing an issue will hurt your ratings. If your views do oppose the majority of the state, then you can simply not talk about that subject.

The process of campaigning becomes repetitive and offers very little replayability. At times it seems you can do the very worst and still get good ratings. It's not a complex simulator, but is interesting enough to try to the demo.

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