Bush's Billions, the latest news-oriented, online game from T-Enterprise parodies the current bailout crisis in the U.S. financial markets.

From the game's description:

US President George W Bush has an imaginary shoot out with the speaker of Congress to get his hands on the $700 billion bail-out cash, in this weeks FAB game.

 

You control "Dubya" hiding behind a patrol car after robbing a bank, and must fire guns at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Bush comments on game progress during play, using real life audio clips of the President.

With the presidential campaign in full swing, Chris Morris of Forbes recaps of the current crop of election simulation games.

Here's a brief sample of Chris's thoughts on the games. Hit the link for his full report:

• President Forever 2008 ...lets you get as detailed as you want to in the campaign. You can determine ad spending, spin news headlines and change campaign themes. Heck, you can even recruit Oprah as a crusader.
• The Political Machine... You're... able to campaign against other players in online multiplayer matchups.
• Power Politics III is the grandfather of political games, having put a version out for every election since 1992 (with the exception of 2000, when designer Randy Chase was unable to find a publisher) 

Morris also mentions a pair of games that are just for fun, with no pretense of simulation:

• Kung Fu Election pits all the candidates... in a series of one-on-one "Mortal Kombat"-style bloodfests.
• Campaign pits Obama against McCain... in a game that seems like an odd combination of "Risk" and any generic spell-based game.

I'll admit to having a man crush on Stardock ever since they issued the PC Gamer's Bill of Rights at PAX last month. Gotta love it when a game publisher thinks about issues like copyright in a rational way and makes a commitment to caring about its customers.

While Stardock is perhaps best known for strategy titles Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations, its presidential campaign sim The Political Machine is a terrific play as well. And now you can download it to sim the 2008 presidential race for free. Stardock announced last week that they are giving away The Political Machine Express for Windows PCs. From the company's press release:

The free strategy game... puts players in the role of the campaign manager of either John McCain or Barack Obama in a quest to win the White House. The game has been updated to feature vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin...

 

Players play on the electoral map of the United States with the goal to gain the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the election. Players get 21 weeks (approximately the time candidates have between the primary season and the general election) to make speeches, raise money, buy advertisements, hire political operatives, appear on cable TV shows in order to woo voters to their side.

GP: Although I've played the full version, I haven't tried the free Political Machine Express. The primary difference would appear to be one of scope, however, with Express focused on the actual McCain-Obama fight, whereas the full $19.99 game offers numerous hypothetical scenarios.

The video accompanying this article is the trailer for the full game.

Over at Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost points us to Debate Night: Obama's Unofficial Game:

Gameplay is derived from Zuma-type games; the player chooses a key issue (represented iconographically) and then uses a match-and-move gesture to swap their positions. Match three or more and they disappear, the equivalent of volleying successfully in the debate.

 

The game both acts as a quality piece of interactive media in support of the campaign and a subtle critique of the process itself, since the issues themselves matter less in the campaign than the way they are repositioned.

Debate Night was designed by Gonzalo Frasca, who collaborated on the Dean for Iowa game during the 2004 Democratic primaries.

Thanks to: GP correspondent Andrew Eisen for the heads-up on Debate Night.

On Tuesday GamePolitics took note of the release of a Sarah Palin action figure and wondered how long it would take for a Palin-based game to hit the web.

Answer: Three days.

Today, U.K.-based T-Enterprise has unveiled Polar Palin.

In the game the player controls a dynamite-equipped polar bear who attempts to blow up Palin-driven "campaign tanks" as well as oil rigs.

What's it all about? Here is the explanation given on the game site:

The U.S. recently classified the Alaskan polar bear as a threatened species because of the destruction of its natural habitat. It is predicted that the population of bears could be reduced by two-thirds by the year 2050 due to pollution and global warming.

 

The state of Alaska, led by Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is to sue the U.S. interior secretary to reverse the decision amid fears that it will hinder oil and gas development.

Singapore's The Straits Times reports on an in-development game in which players use the "cheery pink power of bubblegum" to fight government oppression.

Gumbeat is a Flash game being developed as part of a cooperative effort between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and digital media students in Singapore. So how does Gumbeat play? From the report:

...the heroine chews on candy and blows them into big pink bubbles beside unhappy citizens in the unnamed country in which the candy is banned. This cheers them up enough to entice them to join the protagonist in a revolution, mustering enough angry citizenry to overthrow the oppressive government.

 

This is the aim of the game, said National University of Singapore undergraduate Sharon Chu, who presented her team's game to reporters earlier on Tuesday... The game was made to show that games with serious-themes like say, 'political oppression', can be fun, said Ms Chu.

Chu left the issue of whether the repressive country in question was Singapore up to the "player's interpretation." GamePolitics readers may recall that Singapore's government banned Mass Effect for a time last year over a brief lesbian love scene.

The real Berlin Wall came down in 1989, but Half-Life 2 owners can check out a virtual recreation thanks to an awesome-looking Berlin Wall map which has been posted on the Garry's Mod site.

An explanation accompanies the download:

The anticipated BerlinWall map has been released. The map offers singleplayer experience from the view of an East German citizen, dreaming of living in the West Germany. The gameplay in the map is non-linear, you can take many paths to west. Also, avoid making mistakes, they can be deadly, and remember to check everywhere for some sort of weapons.

The map works the best in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but like common Source-based maps, it also works in Garry's Mod. Not offering the best gameplay experience in it, but works great for posing and comics.

GamePolitics reader Michael Jürges tipped us to the map. He writes in an e-mail to GP:

Although I haven't had the opportunity to play the map yet, the mapping seems, judging from the screenshots, pretty accurate (I'm German myself and I've been to this part of Berlin as well). Personally, I think this might be quite a good idea - reenacting historical settings and immerge oneself into this virtual environment can, perhaps, contribute to a better understanding about what the people who had to endure these challenges in order to escape from the East German regime felt like.

GP: This is something I'd love to check out, so I guess it's time to re-install HL2.

Later this month, Copenhagen-based Serious Games Interactive will release Global Conflicts: Latin America.

The game, intended for students 13-19 years old, will be published in seven languages and is designed to teach students about political and human rights struggles in Latin America. From an SGI press release:

Many Latin American countries have dark histories of genocide, widespread corruption; and systematic exploitation of the indigenous population. The game lets you explore how these historical realities still cast long shadows on the everyday life of people in the region today.

In the game, students are challenged to assume the role of investigative reporters:

You arrive in Mexico at the US border with a bag full of journalistic ambitions. Latin America is one of the most turbulent, violent and poverty-stricken places on the planet. Yet it is only when Western interests in the region are threatened that we hear anything about the nations that struggle with paramilitary rule, extreme poverty and exploitation of the population.

 

In a region where politicians and police are feared rather than respected, people try desperately to grab a piece of the land and call it their own. All too often, however, it ends badly. Can you make a difference by writing investigative stories?

Global Conflicts: Latin America will be released for PC and Mac.

Earlier this month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spotlighted the topic of food waste in the U.K., which he said costs the average household about £8 ($16). Brown's comments, which included criticisms of "buy one, get one free" promotions run by supermarkets, sparked some derision in the UK.

Via the Wasted Food blog, we've learned of an online parody game, Gordon Brown and the Kingdom of the Wasters:

You get to control the British Prime Minister as he tries to recover good food like bananas and cupcakes while avoiding rotten items like fish bones.

 

Apparently, dastardly opposition leader David Cameron is the one throwing away the good food. The goal is to catch Cameron and stop him from giving another press conference. Zelda, it’s not.

Although Texas-based Gamecock ran a high profile marketing blitz for its politically-tinged Hail to the Chimp, reviewers have voted and the game did not do well.

Variety issued a particularly stinging beatdown:

At first blush, "Hail to the Chimp" looks like a promising mix of edgy political humor with multiplayer party gaming mayhem. But the resulting mashup is a chaotic jumble that's doesn't play well and only loosely is tied to politics at all... "Hail to the Chimp" has about as much of a chance of success as a Dennis Kucinich presidential campaign.

Game Informer slapped Hail To the Chimp with a 4/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly 75/100 and GamePro 3/5.

To be fair, 1UP gave HTC a B+, while UGO awarded it an A-

I've been playing around with Stardock's The Political Machine 2008, which arrived in the mail a couple of days back.

While dealing with a serious topic, its graphics give the game a light-hearted feel. After working through the tutorial, I made the mistake of jumping into Campaign mode, which pitted my candidate of choice - Al Gore - against... Ulysses S. Grant.

WTH?

'twas then I realized that the campaign mode runs you through a series of elections against historical figures. Beating Grant unlocked Richard Nixon, and so forth. What I really wanted to use was the Quickplay mode, which allows you to pick your opponents. So I ran Gore against McCain. And then Obama against McCain with Gore as VP. And then an Obama-Hillary slate. McCain, for some reason, kept picking Dick Cheney as his running mate.

While not a truly hardcore sim, the game does get you focused on electoral votes, campaign finances and the whole red state-blue state thing. Based on my early impressions, it's well worth the $20 asking price. I'll have more to say in my Philadelphia Inquirer column on June 27th.

Decent games about the political process are few and far between, but Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II) will release The Political Machine 2008, a turn-based election strategy sim for PC, on June 18th.

And, while real politics is an expensive business, the virtual kind is relatively cheap. The Political Machine 2008 retails for a mere $19.95.

Over at GameSpot, Jon Miller, who played as manager of Barack Obama's simulated campaign, has a detailed preview:

In The Political Machine, one turn breaks down to one week. The amount of stamina your candidate has limits the number of actions you can perform for each turn. Early on, the country is one giant mass of undecided voters, and it's your goal as campaign manager to sway them with lofty campaign promises...as well as blatant negative campaigning...

 

Of course, no election is complete without fundraising. Each action in the game, even flying from one state to another, will drain your campaign budget. If you have enough stamina, it helps to hit the fundraiser button, especially in wealthy states loyal to your party. Obama cleaned up in California and New York, routinely bringing in more than $200,000 per fundraiser, but he floundered in South Dakota where he raised only $6,000.

 

And so the campaign season goes... The Political Machine 2008 is not the most complicated strategy game out there, but it's a fun, lighthearted look at American politics.

GP: I enjoyed the last version of the game (2004), and can't wait to get my hands on this one.

It seems that American politics is not alone in its use of silly fighting games to attract eyeballs.

British political blog Three Line Whip has a bit of a rant today over A Kick in the Balls.

The web-based game pits Justice Secretary Jack Straw (last seen on GamePolitics bashing Sony over the Resistance & Manchester Cathedral flap) against Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls. Of the game, Three Line Whip blogger Iain Martin writes:

How juvenile. The Tories have made a computer game... in which Justice Secretary Jack Straw can be manipulated to assault Ed Balls. So much for David Cameron's talk of a responsible society and his plea for an end to the violence of the video-game culture. This is an outrage, why can't politicians focus on the issues?