This Is the President Review: A Choose-Your-Own Administration

Have you ever wanted the power to change things for the better or make the world fair and fit for all? Can you imagine a land where the rich are held accountable for their crimes, and the poor have equal protection under the law? Well, congratulations. The year is 2020, and you've been elected President of the United States. Time to make the world a better place...right? This simple synopsis sums up the appeal of This Is the President. In this game, every action has consequences that play out on a global scale. But does it win my vote?

Originally released in 2021 and developed by HandyGames, This Is the President is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style interactive story where strategy and management are crucial in saving your life, and I don't just mean politically. The game's goal is to pass the 28th amendment—an amendment granting lifelong immunity to any president. You're trying to ratify this amendment to escape justice for past crimes as a multi-millionaire businessman. If this sounds vaguely familiar, you're not wrong. Several characters in the game are satirical versions of real-life former politicians and political scenarios. This Is the President definitely has a sense of humor about itself. As one that follows politics, it was pretty hilarious when I was asked if I wanted to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which my predecessor withdrew from. This Is the President doesn't pull any punches.

The gameplay involves managing resources and your team through interactive choices. My starting team consisted of four members: a lawyer, a bodyguard, a data analyst, and a communications director. My first executive order was an initiative to fight cancer, so naturally, I didn't choose the bodyguard to help draft the order. My choice of team members for each task had different effects on the outcomes. To make things more interesting. I had to keep those team members happy and manage their stress levels. The gameplay is very involved, and it made me feel that my choices mattered. There were various ways I could handle any given situation, and this range of options for any given scenario is the game’s greatest strength. The pressure builds by having deadlines, random mishaps, sneaky backstabbers, and ne'er-do-wells all trying to take me out of the political equation.

This Is the President plays out in rounds or, in this case, months. By successfully completing goals, you gain approval ratings, money, and items at the beginning of the next month. This is an essential aspect of the game, as decisions will come back to haunt you. To add insult to injury, you can't redo choices without restarting the entire month. I learned this the hard way. After attending a Broadway theater event with the first lady, I received a threatening phone call which led me down a path to having a man killed! Naturally, my staff was stressed, but I decided not to fire anyone at the end of the month. It's all in a day's work when you're the president.

Another highlight of This Is the President is its attention to detail. The game

translates political procedures in a way that feels true to life. Sure, that

might mean sitting through long explanations, for example, of ratifying an

amendment to the constitution. But it provides an excellent crash course on

U.S. politics for those unfamiliar with the process.

The game also includes right- and left-wing media outlets, which comment on your choices as you progress. I thought the addition of the standard talking-head media figures was a nice added touch. What I found even more interesting is that the game throws out several statistics throughout the story, such as: "More than 600,000 Americans die of cancer each year." After a quick fact check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I learned that number was spot on! It was cool that I was learning and gaming simultaneously. The hand-drawn visual artwork of This Is the President is also impressive. It really ups the ante by adding moments of voice acting and jazzy instrumentals to set the mood. There was even a musical when I went to Broadway!

That being said, the game’s presentation isn't perfect; there's A LOT of text and reading involved. Although I appreciated the option to change font size, I felt like I was reading a novel at times. The story is definitely a slow burn, although the dialogue was humorous and made me chuckle on more than one occasion. Going through individual months and making decisions on every little thing can be painstaking. Especially if you're just trying to stick with the main story. But those many decisions also mean that there are hours of gameplay contained in This Is the President. With so many key decisions to return to and try new approaches with, the replay value is high, and I liked having to handle the little scenarios, like being approached by random pharmaceutical companies asking for handouts for "special research projects." Others will want to stick with the big-stage political intrigue and maneuvering, but I enjoyed the more mundane aspects of the presidential experience.

This Is the President offers hours of gameplay and an incredible visual and narrative experience for $10. I found all the angles of the job quite addicting, from choosing who to hire and fire, to making political moves, to deciding my presidential agenda. Add onto that the understated educational value of the game, and it's earned a second term from me.

SCORE: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• House of Cards and The West Wing. If you swoon at political dramas, you'll like the bureaucratic maneuvering and intrigue that This Is the President offers.

• Civilization. Turn-based strategy games, like Civilization, are the predecessor of This Is the President. With its turn-based mechanism of building up resources and even negotiation, you'll find many similarities between titles to enjoy. So, if you love strategy, this game is for you.