This is The President Review

This is The President is a very, very weird strategy game. Developed by SuperPAC and published by HumbleGames, it puts you into the shoes of the newly-elected President of the United States of America and only asks of you to do a few simple things to win.

You must raise $7 million, get two-thirds of Congress on your side, win over 90% of the population and get Amendment 28 to the Constitution ratified so you don’t spend the rest of your life in prison at the end of your four year term.

No pressure, right?

Fight lies with even bigger lies!

It’s inherently political, it comes with the topic, but it’s in a more satirical tone than what you’d expect. Throughout my playthrough, I was playing my President as if they had come straight from Tropico, or Saints Row IV. It’s not meant to be all that serious, just come into it without any strong feelings for politics. You’ll have way more fun that way.

The game opens with you making a speech after somehow being elected as the President of the United States. Congratulations. Make it good for the media, make a few promises that you may or may not keep, then wait until Inauguration Day so you can finally get into power.

However, you aren’t after a re-election. You quickly discover that the President is not exactly “innocent.” Not even by the standards of the usual politicians. They’ve done a lot of bad things and if you don’t add an Amendment to the Constitution that gives you life-long immunity, you’re definitely going to jail once your term is up. Of course, it won't be easy. Being the President doesn't mean you can just do anything you want, so you might need to get your hands a little dirty...

If you’re coming into this game expecting something like Democracy, you will be thoroughly disappointed as you see a stick puppet musical depicting gay lovers and how they got into a car accident that led to the death of a little girl. Also, it isn’t as deep as Democracy.

Was not expecting a musical. It's good though. Almost makes me feel bad for killing the director.

As President, you’re going to have to make some tough calls throughout the game and attend to your presidential duties. Maybe supporting veterans, helping a town in the middle of a crisis, or stopping someone from spewing slander and libel against you. Some of these are optional, while others need to be completed in order to move onto the next month and to make sure you reach important goals by the end of each year.

Now, you can’t do that alone. You're gonna need a cabinet of people you can trust/abuse in order to get things done. A lawyer to make things a little more legal, a bodyguard to silence a few unhelpful voices, a hacker to make sure your secrets aren't leaked. They’re resources you’ll need in order to complete the various presidential duties efficiently. However, use them too much and they’ll become unavailable for the rest of the month. Push them further, and they might suffer a nervous breakdown and leave. You can’t resolve everything, and a lot of choices you make cost money so you’ll need to balance your funds, stress of your cabinet and approval ratings. That’s not to mention that you can screw up your duties and plummet your rating, or just spend your money on nothing.

You’ll also need to consider who is in charge of what. Your Chief of Staff, Treasurer and such. Each member has bonuses and drawbacks for certain roles like more money gained per month in exchange for added stress when making choices.

Step 1: Become President Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit

It’s a balancing act, which gets more complex as time passes, but it doesn’t really go deeper than that. Sure, you get more members for your cabinet with different skills, but most of the time you’re just picking whoever you need for certain jobs and picking dialogue options. It requires thinking, and you’ll agonise over a few choices, but it’s never really that taxing until you have royally screwed up.

However, I will give special mention to the music. A lot of the tracks are jazzy and upbeat, which makes conning America that much more fun while you pick and choose what to say and make yourself look good. And that aforementioned musical is surprisingly catchy.

In what it offers in strategy, you won’t find it here. Most of the time you’re just picking who would be good for which job (probably what the real President does). However, you will find some intriguing story and writing that showcases not only how tough being the President would actually be, but the flaws in democracy while keeping a more light-hearted tone than what you’d expect. At the very least, you should check it out and play through it on the lower difficulties.