14 DAY TRIAL // 
Should the president of the USA put his business interests in a blind trust for the duration of his mandate? Should he donate a ton of money to set an example about charity? Can journalists be trusted? How many past scandals can a president and his lackeys deal with as they try to dominate electoral politics while also getting a record approval rate?
This Is the President is created by SuperPAC (a great name for a politics-focused developer) and published by THQ Nordic. I played it via Steam on the PC. The game is built around a simple concept: become the president of the United States of America and try to reach your goals in a variety of ways.
The story starts on election night in 2020, with the player taking on the role of the new president-elect. A victory speech is the first thing the player needs to create, pulling together snippets of familiar political lines. Then the game opens up and reveals its twist: the president you are playing got himself elected to add the 28th amendment to the Constitution, one designed to shield him from legal action after his term. Gamers will need to use a range of mechanics, mostly based around dialogue, to reach this goal and the good governance of the country does not actually matter.
The big goal of This Is the President can only be reached by paying millions to a lobbyist, rigging majorities, changing the will of the Supreme Court, and getting a big positive approval rating. The game acknowledges the framework of politics in the United States but is not a simulation. This corrupt president can do things that a living one would be unable to get away with. He is also curiously limited in many ways: unable to use polls, having to deliver decisions with limited knowledge, dealing with issues that would never make it to a real head of state.
The game is not a simulation, although it has aspects of one. Players will get at least one major crisis to deal with every month, with a big effect on their approval rating. Smaller decisions flow to the desk of the most powerful man in the world. Some dilemmas can only be solved by using two or more staff (each has a series of abilities and a stress level) and the particular action options they unlock. The game also features smaller events that require one staff to be assigned for one month. The president also gets to promote executive orders, aside from crafting his amendment and gets objects that have the power to get him out of certain situations but can also be converted to cash.
This Is the President keeps players constantly busy. The writing is mostly solid and becomes even better when situations veer towards the absurd. But the game has trouble choosing a tone. The president can do some truly awful things, both to individuals and crowds. He can also try to get a man on his way to Mars before the Chinese do. It all works best when it wants to be as serious as the first few seasons of House of Cards.
The bigger issue is the lack of predictability. There are choices where it’s impossible to know what brings about an approval increase by only reading about the situation. The game does offer a rewind mechanic for every month so that players can go back and ace all choices. But there is limited fun in simply knowing how to behave to get the best results. The game would have benefited from a smaller range of decision points with better tools to evaluate and find the best solution.
This Is the President manages to pair its premise and mechanics with a solid presentation. The developer has produced a lot of artworks for its many events, with a look that reads like a slightly abstracted version of what political-focused media features. The interface is easy to use and informative and the occasional cutscenes have good production values. The sound design and the music are slightly less impressive and quite repetitive.
The Good
- Choice driven gameplay
- Focus on politics
- Plenty of possibilities
The Bad
- Too many real-world inspirations
- Never settles on a tone
- Choices need more clarity
Conclusion
The writing is at its best when a situation escalates from relatively believable situations into absurdity and satire. But there are just as many moments when the results of player choices feel forced or when the game is trying too hard to draw from the real world. SuperPAC clearly understands how to make politics into solid game mechanics, they just need to better calibrate the tone of their world.
Review code provided by the publisher.
