Political video games usually come in only two varieties: Those that give you the power straight off and allow you carte blanche in terms of policy or those in which you must attempt to win power in an election through campaigning. None really give the full experience of what it means to be an elected government official. From day one the governments are trying to enact changes in policy that will have them re-elected in the next election. Thankfully the game Democracy changes that.

In Democracy you choose which country to run from any of ten democratic first world countries. You are then congratulated on your victory in the last election. Nice to have a game start in a positive fashion as opposed to the usual “The princess has been adsconded with, go rescue her, plumber.” opening. No! In this game you are a winner to begin with.

So what is a newly elected President, Prime Minister, or Premier to do? Start going about the business of finding out what is wrong with the country and fixing it, of course. Well, that or maybe wiretapping; whatever floats your boat. Luckily for you, all the info you need to go about making changes is on a handy-dandy - And pretty! And useful! And not to be understated! - computer screen. Makes sense for a computer game, no? There is a list of all the issues, all the trouble spots, your departments, your budget, and your debt (You automatically start with the debt since fiscal responsibility is secondary to bread and circuses for all these nations). You can change various policies, or invoke new ones, to combat any problems which may have arisen. Be careful though, as pleasing one group of people will almost certainly offend another one. Lefties vs. Righties, capitalists vs. socialists, Yankees vs. Red Sox; it's all a delicate balancing act when you're in power. Luckily, there is the option of seeing how your policy changes will affect these groups. Think of it as having an instantaneous focus group. Seeing how positively and negatively these groups will react is a great help in maintaining your popularity. And you must remain popular; otherwise you lose the votes, then power, and then the game. No way to come back from an election defeat in this game.

There are well over 30 different policies you can have going on at once. Abortion, cigarettes, the military, stem cell research, you truly have a number of ways to change a country's make-up. Make the United States a socialist paradise? Have at it. Turn Canada into a military superpower? Go for it! Make sure France can win the next war? Well... maybe we can't go that far... but you get the rough idea. Bringing about these changes isn't so easy, though. As I said earlier, each change will have repercussions for various groups, and the numbers of voters within these groups vary by country. That's right, no country is the same. Hard to fathom, isn't it? So some countries will appreciate socialised medicine more than others, while other countries will gladly accept faith based schools more than others. Unfortunatley, that dream of a leftist U.S. may be a bit harder in practice to achieve.

To make your political life that much more difficult, you are forced to hire an intern to work for you. Oh no, my mistake, that's going to be in the new Leisure Suit Larry game. In Democracy, the problems come from events and dilemma's. Dilemma's are political problems that pop up out of nowhere and force you to make a decision which will hurt your standing with one group while improving it with another. For example, you could be asked “Do you support seal hunts?” and your standing with capitalists and Pamela Anderson will be affected. The game also has a number of random events which will affect you in differing ways depending on your current policies. For instance, a famine hits Africa, and if your foreign aid is low, then your popularity will fall. Catch illegal weapons crossing the border because you have high border security and your popularity will rise. The only gripe I had was that the number of random events was slimmer than a supermodel with a tapeworm. Hmm... I wonder if I've inadvertently started a new diet fad with that last thought...

The game's controls are your basic turn-based mouse and hand combo. The learning curve on this game is shallow as a kiddie pool. You'll have figured everything out after an hour tops. After getting the hang of things, you can make a number of changes in the game regarding how well the world economy is, how cynical the public is, how random the events are, as well as if the number of policy changes you can make in a turn is limited by how popular your government is based on the last election. These options add to the life of the game, but I still found the game to have a shorter life than I had anticipated. This is due in part to the lack of dilemma's and events, as well as the seemingly isolationist feeling of the game. There seems to be no other country in the world but your own. The size of your armed forces and trading policies has no affect outside of your country. There are no dilemna's forced on you by other countries, and no war. While it is refreshing to have a game world without war - After all, what is it good for - we do not live in this type of world, as the CNN ticker will attest to. The lack of an interactive world (no UN, OPEC, NAFTA, EU) hinders the game, as it lacks a certain spontaneity. The lack of a war feature, or even the option to institute a regime change, does take away from the feel of realism in the game.

I also noticed some slight problems with the starting values for some of the countries. Canada starts off with a budget deficit, whereas in real life they have had a surplus for the past half-decade. The debt in the game is also much smaller than in real life for Canada. The number of conservatives, environmentalists, and other voting groups could also be disputed. Furthermore, noticed that some policies were not at the proper start settings for many of the countries, or some policies were not instituted at all when they should have been. This is all just fact-checking which, though a minor quibble, could have been corrected before publishing.

After a couple of weeks, I felt I had gained all from the game as was possible. The lack of spontaneity and international relations led to each country feeling too similar. That beig said, the game itself still only cost 23 USD, so I think I got my money's worth. I've also picked up the game for an hour or so every month or two since it is a very unique gaming experience. I'll gladly take a game I'll continue to play off and on for years than a game I'll play for a brief period of time and then forget about. The modding community is also pretty good at getting new events and policies out on the forums. The developer also genuinely cares about the game and will respond personally to your emails as well as get patches up extremely quickly. If you're interested in why politicians act the way they do and think you can do a better job, I recommend this game. If, on the other hand, you feel that politics and games about them are a waste of time, then I'm wondering why you've read this far.