The following article may contain strong language and suggestions of political opinions. Reader’s discretion is advised.

The Million Dollar man once said, “Everybody’s got a price!” Politics is fairly similar in that regard, backroom deals to get further backroom deals through or in front of Congress. A chief whip gets a vote here, a lower-level official gets a promise of their legislature making it in front of the President. Politics is also a very mistrusted and volatile game, now more than ever. Ideologues throwing mud, a disaffected electorate, alongside sustained misinformation add to the typical apathetic and growing disbelieving fringes of voters.

This Is The President sits adjacent to the one thing internet comments will repeatedly yell should not be in games. As a result, I think it is important to point out that This Is The President is first and foremost trying to satirize politics. More precisely, it shows a reflexive mirror to the presidency of the 45th. He is not mentioned by name but indeed by profile with your predecessor: A loud and brash man, who by the end of his first and only term had left countless pledges broken, alongside a rampant social media presence and questionable position with the press. Not that you end up in better circumstances either.

The premise of this sometimes interesting idea is your similarity to questionable purposes for becoming the President. As a businessman of considerable wealth from years building prisons and other businesses, you become the messianic leader followed by his close-knit co-conspirators in a series of crimes you profess you did not commit. Your goal as President is simple: Pass the 28th Amendment to the constitution by the end of your first and only term. By hook, crook, or otherwise, no one cares. As long as you accomplish it before November 2024, the 28th Amendment is aimed to protect dethroned Presidents of any and all crimes committed during and before they became President.

On paper, it sounds like a moderately decent thriller, as written by the likes of James Paterson or even that of David Guggenheim, creator, and writer of Designated Survivor. However, the potential is often overshadowed by the stark and often unfortunate reality that not only are SuperPAC & THQ Nordic trying to head off comments of “video games are too political,” but trying to cut them off at the knees. I may not have been clear enough: Any sense of grand strategy or political simulation is thrown out the window a majority of the time. Instead, the game opts for quick and snide remarks, all with the ambition of being seen as some great satire to be held aloft.

It has a one-note cast of characters with a series of conspiracy-led thinking spread throughout, and what generally feels like a lack of understanding (or possibly a lack of care) for what the potential sets up. I don’t want it misconstrued that I dislike This Is The President, there are moments that make it enjoyable for what it is, and I can hardly deride the game for what it is not alone. There are fleeting moments, glimpses of that potential catching the sun and seeing the light of day. Regardless, the continued attempts to point the finger at the last guy with maintained amorphous phrases of “the bastards,” “deep state,” “the media,” “the establishment,” and other nonsense that got us here in the first place are overdone.

Of course, no one is going to write the perfect piece of fiction that brings everyone together to say, “That’s perfect.” Several years ago, we could hardly agree on the color of a bloody dress. However, the character work for This Is The President is questionable at the best of times, and downright stupid at others. As a game and the ideas of not only prolonged visual novel-esque aspects but also the series of decisions you make through either speeches, hires, positions appointed, and otherwise, I cannot fault it. The groundwork and the basic and simple ideas of a solid political simulation concentrated on showing even slightly what it may be like to be President, are there.

My issue, above all else, lies in the writing that shows either disdain or apathy with the system and wants to highlight that, employing a satirical view. However, with satire, parody needs a voice and it needs to say something with at least a modicum of intelligence, wit, and a sharp point to penetrate the intended target. Outside of speeches and poorly written tweets, the President hardly forms more than three short and simple indirect sentences. His presidential counterpart is a conspiracy nut that supposedly led the FBI and behaves like a child, and your wife is only a few semitones away from being one-note and off-key.

In fact, the entire cast hardly ascends above a single tone. Beyond a regular phrase here or a minor character trait there, no one has a distinct voice, including the President. I’d go as far as to say no one at the highest point in office in this fictional land we call the US is educated. There was one mission in the early few months of my presidency where cocaine was found in the White House with a note quite obviously in Spanish, and no one knew what it said. Spanish is the second-highest language in the US (for obvious reasons) and no one in the White House knew basic high school Spanish.

Of course, the simple argument would be that the inconsistencies with reality (as we know it) are to facilitate the fictional story being conveyed. However, that does not mean you can’t have competent characters. The trouble there is a deficiency in that understanding (or abundance of apathy) I spoke about a few moments ago: The President is briefed by someone at the Pentagon on a school shooting, and that person complains about a limp-wristed left-wing media calling for action? My point? You are told you are the President, but you are very rarely doing the work, just listening to idiots.

Through the gameplay you make decisions, yes, though those judgments are entirely based on characterizations from very few monotonal voices, and often they adopt those amorphous phrases. Every third thing said in-game becomes conspiracy, further down the rabbit hole we go with this childish yelling to a parent, “Look, the 45th made a complete and utter joke of this highly respected office.” Once more, my question is unambiguous, where is the sharp component to burst the clown’s balloon sword? The gameplay is often constrained by contrived and often lethargically written conspiracies intertwined with a colorless cast of characters.

Similar to that of the Democracy games, This Is The President gives you a host of issues to deal with, and a limited resource to complete those objectives. You tick through every month (a turn) putting out the already established fires of people who seem to forget they are setting them. You use those fire starters you call loyal-staff by paying them through your money-laundering charity front. Each staff member has a level of stress to deal with, each job has different stress levels, and if they are part of your limited cabinet members, they will most likely already have stress building. That’s the easy bit to explain.

However, every one of those issues the President is tasked with tackling are particularly reactionary. You are no longer leading, you are responding. With SuperPAC being (as one would assume) an off-shoot of This Is The Police developer Weappy Studio under THQ Nordic, I think it is reasonable to draw the comparison. The trouble is that at least on the surface This Is The Police has a better gameplay loop and makes you at least feel like you are in power, despite the fact you always feel like you are losing a tight grip. A political simulator of any kind will never have the thrills and excitement of sending officers into dangerous situations by the minute.

Customary matters such as Secret Service are pushed aside whenever necessary, as is the daily briefing despite pre-inauguration mentions of it, threat assessments, regular press briefings, cabinet meetings, and other consequences of being the President. Of course, you want to “cut the fat” from something like a game where you can’t program everything into something you desire to streamline. Nevertheless, what it leaves you with in terms of gameplay boils down to memos from departments, heads of companies, or influential people at the start of every month. All of these are answered with “Yes” or “No,” despite a few needing a more complex response.

Then comes your conspiracy and several issues that need to be taken care of within the coming months that affect your presidency. Some of those are good, some hard decisions are in there and you have to act on some requests that can only be handled by you. Moments where you are defusing riots or armed hostage situations are very interesting and well done, as are the problems of trying to get congress members on your side. It is when you’re dragged away from that to bribe a psychic, listen to nonsense about Camp David being haunted, and other nonsense that’s just wasting time.

Yes, a narrative is the ultimate goal and is being told, but it feels like it is articulated with force. Tell the conspiracy, make it convoluted and downright stupid if you must. However, to make something like this satirical, you need to put something serious in the mixture to juxtapose your hijinx. Otherwise, there is no straight man in the comedy duo, as it were. This Is The President thinks of itself as smart, funny, and well thought out. In reality, it is little more than a five-minute monologue by a crap late-night show host taking minor swings at the 45th. I’m all for verbal jabs, but there is nothing more than Kimmel or Fallon here.

More often than not you are caught up in the most absurd and downright infuriating nonsense, and that’s when I really can’t stand the slovenly written mess that is every bit of conspiracy. Those fleeting moments that put you in meetings and points of power stand out as something worth your time, decisions that affect what happens to you. However, far too often This Is The President is bogged down by its own attempts to be humorous, and one thing I never did the whole time while playing was laugh. I spent more time annoyed by declarative statements of a “deep state” than laughing. There was no joke, it was a mirror held to politics these last few years.

Ultimately I don’t hate This is the President, I simply wish it were trying to do something and do it well. The building blocks are there, and there were moments where you could see the foundations holding up the otherwise cowboy job the builders did, but you can tell that if someone breaths too heavily the whole place is coming down. Normally I won’t complain about spelling mistakes too much, but when it is your absolute focus of gameplay those oversights become issues. Emphatically I wish there were more long-term threads to play with in terms of non-conspiracy/mental stories, something to hitch my wagon onto.

A PC copy of This Is The President was provided by THQ Nordic for the purposes of this review.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!

This Is The President

$14.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• A few strong moments of executive power.
• The madcap musical moment.
• A bisexual president and no one seems to care.

Cons

• Often hamfisted writing trying to pass as satire.
• A large amount of time humbling with nonsense.
• Spelling mistakes/oversights.