Cynics Unlimited

Disappointed with Stephen Harper’s election performance? Think you could have done a better job taking out the Liberals? Was Paul Martin’s campaign a complete disaster next to your grand scheme to save Canada’s natural governing party? Thanks to 80Soft’s Prime Minister Forever you can put your political prowess to the test in an electronic re-creation of the 2006 Canadian Election.

The game lets you choose between Canada’s 4 major parties (Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Bloc Quebecois, NDP) and several minor parties (Green Party, Marijuna Party, Christian Heritage Party, Marxist-Leninist, Canadian Action, Progressive Canadian, Libertarians). You can even run as an independent. After selecting a party, player can choose to run with the real-life candidate or create a new character (yes you can insert your own picture – knew you were going to ask)

The goal of the game is of course to win a majority government (130 seats) or take the consolation prize minority government. The game takes place on a War-Games style grid with each player moving in turn. During a turn players choose one or more of several tasks to perform:

• Fly to a new region for a round of baby-kissing and barbecuing
• Respond to newsflashes and try to spin the story
• Create advertising to either boost the party’s image or cut down an opponent’s image
• Barnstorm a few ridings to add support for candidates running close races
• Fund private polls to counter the inaccuracy of the freely-available public polls
• Research the issues and make according adjustments to the party platform
• Prepare for televised debates
• Deliver policy speeches
• Exercise influence over major newspapers and trade organizations that can in turn reward the party with positive press, money or foot-soldiers

Actions are limited by several factors including physical health (measured in energy points), command points and of course money.

Prime Minister Forever is a micromanager’s dream. Far beyond the basic “national poll”, statistics can be broken down to the riding, with individual ratings for each party’s candidate. Themed ads can be run in specific regions on different media for varying lengths of time. The main map can be overlaid with information on targeted regions or advertising. Political platforms can be adjusted from hard left to hard right in 18 different categories, each of which have varying importance to the public. Real-world events unfold as the game progresses (e.g. charges against Conrad Black, gun violence in Toronto) and affect public prioritization of issues. True to the current political landscape, it is virtually impossible to win a majority with any party besides the Conservatives or Liberals. Regions behave characteristically - seemingly no amount of bribery and policy adjustment could persuade Torontonians to vote for Cynapse Harper, while oil-crazy Alberta was completely immune to the environmental overtures of the NDP and the Greens.

Of course, such a high level of detail could also be a turnoff for the Grand Theft Auto generation of gamers. Admittedly, Prime Minister Forever does at times play like a spreadsheet. More bothersome to me was the fixed window size, effectively preventing players with a screen resolution of any consequence from filling the entire screen. The color scheme also looks a bit dated, though that hardly bothered this long-term Alpha Centauri addict.

Prime Minister Forever is ideal for hardcore political junkies who want to try their hand at guiding the 2006 Canadian Election to its “proper” conclusion. For $20, which also gets you bonus scenarios for previous elections and a discount on related games (Chancellor Forever, President Forever), one can hardly go wrong. At the very least, this game should be distributed in schools so I don’t have to hear another person gleefully muse about voting out Stephen Harper in 2008 [as though it were a fixed date].

http://www.80soft.com/pmforever/info/

Rating: 78/100