This is a game that is available on Drengin.net along with Galatic Civilizations and a few other games. I purchased a subscription to Drengin.net back when Galatic Civilizations came out and I'm about to try the Political Machine. I was wondering if anyone else has played it and if they have any impressions or any pointers. Upon initially firing it up, there are a nice variety of issues to take a stance on, I'm just not sure how it works as I can't seem to find any help documentation yet.

Any update here?

I've played it, a slightly better game than President Forever. The Graphics add to the fun, and theres an actual framework when playing. You do a campaign-campaign: You pick a canidate to run with (either democratic or republican) and move yourself up the ranks of canidates. For example, I pick John Kerry as my canidate, on the first level I go against Condi Rice. If I beat her, another republican canidate unlocks, I think it was Arnold. If I beat him I go against a toughher canidate, like Gerald Ford for example. Its a interesting kind of framework they put the game in, because if you want to unlock a republican, you have to play as democrat, and vice versa.

The Graphics add to the game and its fun to see all the characters you can use to help your campaign, like a consultant who helps your awareness increase in that state that shes in.

On the con side, there is some simplicity to the game, like when going on a national tv show and answering questions comes down to 2 things, one, how fast you answer the question and 2, which answer would best fit your canidate.

Also, if you getting endorsements is overvalued in the game, if you get like 4 endorsements you can win a campaign pretty easily. I'm waiting till the real game comes out to see how they improved it and then I'll give it a formal rating.

This game is supposed to be out at the end of this month, which is today. Yet it isn't out yet, I guess it will be available tomorrow or in a few days.

This game is out now. I don't have it. If I run across it in the computer store, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I'll wait for some reviews and maybe purchase it online.

I was going to get it but the release date that the retailers had was instead a ship to retailers date, so it won't be in stores until Friday or next week.

Now I may end up not getting it as the next chance I can buy it (2 week trip) will be in September and September is a loaded month for me and my PC gaming.

Well, I ended up getting it through totalgaming.net, and to summarize, I like the game. It does seem simplistic, but I think I prefer it that way. Maybe I'm getting simple-minded, but I don't know if I enjoy the reallyreally deep strategy games anymore. I don't have enough time to learn all of their nuances. For the rest of you, I wish they'd release a demo, but I'm enjoying it so far.

I thought the game might be a little too unrealistic when my Democrat candidate Bitsy Pookums (she's a young hottie with no political background) nearly won Texas against Condoleeza Rice. I sent Bitsy to Texas, and we created ads saying that Rice was against the war on terror. The polls in Texas were actually in my favor for about 20 weeks, but then I think the Texans figured out that we were flat-out lying, and Rice won Texas, which was basically the difference in the entire election. I enjoyed it, though.

Ha ha. Played again and kicked Condoleeza's booty. It wasn't too hard since I ended up winning Texas, Florida, California, New York, and Ohio. It didn't take a whole lot more after that. :)

Okay, one more note here. Now I'm starting to think that this game is TOO simplistic. There just isn't enough to do. I'm glad I got it through totalgaming.net because I have access to a few other games for the $50 I paid (since I already had Galactic Civilizations). Honestly, I think it's barely worth the $20 that it would cost at a retail store. I still like the game a bit, and I'll play it again, but once you get about 8-12 weeks into a campaign (which doesn't take long), you really end up just performing the same two or three tasks over and over.

So I don't enjoy games that are too deep, and I don't enjoy games that are too simple. I don't know where to go from here.

I agree, I get kind of sick of campaign games, it seems like you do the same thing over and over. Someone needs to make a game where you are actually the Prez.

After having played this some I find it inferior to President Forever despite its prettier graphics and overall slicker presentation. Although in its favor is that the campaign mode does make for a slightly more difficult game than PF.

I would agree with all those calling for a successor to Shadow President.

I've never played President Forever, and I probably won't. I don't care for political games very much, but The Political Machine looked interesting. Besides, with my totalgaming.net subscription, I got TPM and I'll get all of the Disciples II games. :)

Anyone playing the Political Machine yet? I'd be interested in hearing some feedback. By its looks, it appears that it may, in addition to being a good sim, actually be fun to play, as well.

Okay... I broke down and bought it myself. I highly recommend it, in its post-patch (version 1.01) form, for those interested in the whole presidential election process.

I started with a fictional character I created, who I edited to have as close to my own politcal views as the allocation would allow. There is a dynasty mode (called "Campaign" mode) where you select your candidate and face 8-10 candidates of the opposite party, one at a time. I began with me vs Condi Rice. Basically, you start out 42 weeks from election day with a screen of the United States. Each candidate has a campaign headquarters in their homestates (WV for me).

You have stamina points that allow for so many actions per week. You use the stamina points to create ads (on hot topics in newspaper, radio, TV; in order of cheapest to most expensive), speeches (again on hot topics), fundraise (amount depends on which state and how many times you have done it there before), build more headquarters (grassroots at the state level), or special interests (allow you to use stamina to build political points that allow you to get endorsements from different organizations [labor unions, environmentalists, an NRA clone, etc.] or hire political activists [spin doctors, intimidators, consultants, etc.]. So, basically you have to map out your victory strategy (which you actually can do by selecting your target states on an alternate map) and choose how you are going to win. There are some random wildcards that can be found at certain points on the map, like celebrity endorsers and media darlings (positive) or kooks (who look very similar to Michael Moore) and jaded consultants (negative), that can really have an effect on a race in their state. There are also random media appearances available, like Barry King (creampuff questions) and the O'Maley (difficult questions) that appear from time to time that can also have an effect.

About halfway through the race, you get to choose your running mate from the list of in-game candidates (Gore, the Clintons, the Bushes--including Barb and Laura, etc). They give you a little push in whichever states they appear.

There are all kinds of replay things, like randomizing the demographics of states and unlocking historical candidates. There are a ton of candidates--probably 20 or so to begin with, with 10-15 more locked/mystery ones. The graphics are fun and the gameplay and learning curve are very good. You can play a whole race (at least I can) in about one hour, although you could do a lot more or less research in playing.

I have faced Rice, Schwartznegger, Taft, and Ford so far in my "campaign." So far I have defeated all four, but Schwartznegger (holding CA) and Ford (who did a great job of advertising) have giving me difficult challenges--with the latest against Ford coming down to swing states OH, MD, IL, and suprisingly CA and Ford's homestate of MI. It was actually fairly stressful watching the results come in, as I lost OH, MD, and IL, but stole MI and then CA (the third to last state to report results behind Alaska and HI) put me over the top.

The difficulty appears to increase as you climb the ladder in your campaign--I'm imagining that someone like Lincoln or Reagan are at the top the Republican campaign challenge and FDR or JFK as the Democrat's big boss (just guessing here).

Anyway, I'm enjoying it and thought some of you all might be interested. Sorry for the length.

I just lost to Grant. Horrible, he took Ohio, Florida, Washington, Michigan and somehow stole New Mexico and Hawaii from my grasp. I ran out of money about 3/4's away from the finish line. So I was a sitting duck in Wisconsin for a few weeks.

http://www.politicalmachine.com/game.asp?c=1&u=0

A brief reading of the game's synopsis shows that it mentions multiplayer. Anyone looked at that yet?

I think I'd be upset if I lost to Schwarzenegger considering he can't become president. Keep the impressions coming, I'm on the fence with this one. I would really like to play the demo. Any word on when that is coming?

It is fun for a few plays, but not worth $20. It is way too simple and maybe too unrealistic. I never got the feeling that the candidates had any real identity. I guess that was because I realized that with a Republican candidate I could win New York and California pretty easily and on top of that either party seemed capable of making any issue their own. (As a Republican doing a bunch of tv ads and getting an endorsement I could win the support of the people on issues like the enviroment or other traditionally non-repub. issues and vice versa for non-dem issues.)
President Forever did a much better job of balancing some of the partisan elements out and I played it a lot longer. It also was only $12 and there have been a ton of patches and add-ons. Plus I believe there is supposed to be a primary season add-on soon that should be awesome. It's definitely not as flashy, and probably someone that isn't really into politics, especially elections, wouldn't like it too much for too long. Unfortunately, while the political machine might have enabled a little broader audience by simplifying some things, it also crippled any long-term interest it may have maintained for pretty much anyone, I'd think. (The only possible exception I can even fathom is if someone really liked the multiplayer, it'd have some replay value.)
Unlike the best games in the sim/strategy genre, like FOF and civilization, I never felt like every time I started over in the political machine was truly a new beginning. The primary appeal in FOF and Civ. (for me) are that you can play them over and over again, and even though you're making a lot of the same decisions again, it is a new start every time and everything is different. This game completely lacks that, and President Forever ultimately lacks it as well, although it is vastly suprerior in many of the short term areas. They are simply too narrow for my taste. (Of course, I'm still waiting for the day when a career-oriented political sim comes out. That is my bias, I suppose.)
I never tried the multiplayer mode, but I imagine it'd be similar to the harder levels of single-player mode. Inevitably most states (and all the big/swing states) would have 100% awareness for both candidates so it'd come down to whether the state leaned liberal or conservative, and the final stage was always moving in enough smear merchants and spin doctors to sway things in your direction while the opponent attempts to do the same.

I still think it is worth $20.00.

I finally went through and beat all the Republicans (after many, many tries against Lincoln and Washington). I'm interested to see who gets unlocked on the democratic side.