You Be the PM

I came across this really interesting game last night: http://www.primeministerforever.com

I've only tried the demo version but I think I'll likely put down the cash for the full version. Has anyone tried it? Any comments?

In it, you get to be one of the party leaders (or, in the full version, you can create your own leader or party. So, I guess you could run as Joe Clark, or Pierre Trudeau or Jean Lapierre). The candidates in each riding are the actual candidates and have their local levels of popularity (very impressive considering it's an American game). Each turn, you can barnstorm campaign in targeting ridings, travel province to province, give speeches, fundraise, or prepare for debates. The leaders have endurance and limited budgets so you can't spread yourself too thin. You also have a platform, spin doctors, and scandals. There are certain things I'd rather the game have - maybe the ability to give multiple speeches on one topic during the course of the campaign. I'd also like to see certain issues become more predominant and every now and then morph into a 1 issue campaign (ie. 1988).

In the demo I played, I took on Paul Martin and, although it took me a while to play the game, I have new found respect for Paul Martin. By the time my 2 week demo had ended, I was poised to win 80 seats in their projections (even though I was only 2 points back in popular vote???). I had also taken the Liberal bank account from 10 million dollars to 1.5 million, not realizing that I was spending half a million dollars a day for my clever adds attacking Stephen Harper on being too close to the US. I'd decided to spend most of my time in BC and Ontario and while I was in very good shape in BC (ahead of the Tories), I was only keeping even in Ontario and was getting destroyed in Quebec and the Prairies.

All in all, looks like a fun game. I think I'll buy the full version (it's only 15 bucks Canadian) sometime next week.