It’s no secret that from our team at TheXboxHub I’m the one with the passion for politics. Imagine my delight when I am Your President, a simulation and stats management role playing game based on occupying the highest office in the land, popped up for review. Okay, it’s not “I am Your Prime Minister”, but I’ll hold out hope for that one in the future.
In I am Your President, unsurprisingly, you take the role of the titular incumbent hot off the heels of an election victory. However, the honeymoon is short lived as the everyday challenges of running the country soon come into sharp focus. Your aim, as with every politician, is to ensure that you keep your job when the next election rolls round.
First off, you’ll go through a few rounds of questions to decide which party you are affiliated with, and what type of politician you are by responding to key issues. Then you can choose your manifesto or “promises”, which will define what you set out to achieve in your first four year term. Depending on your choices, the narrative will play out slightly differently each time you play.
I am Your President is presented in the typical menus-upon-menus fashion that you would come to expect with a strategy game, and choosing your responses is sadly as exciting as it gets for the most part. The action almost exclusively takes place from the point of view of the President sitting at his desk, and apart from press conferences you don’t actually leave it. Action points determine how much you can achieve each day, and there are many ways to increase how many you can spend each turn. There are six main stats you will need to manage to guarantee re-election: Society, Politics, Industry, Economy, Military and Diplomacy.
In all honesty, these don’t have much difference between them bar the icons on screen. Basically, I am Your President is a point and click affair where you make a string of decisions to influence your stats in such a way as to fulfil your chosen goals. Some decisions are thrust upon you, and others are more of a free choice for you to make.
The first few days act as a tutorial, steadily introducing different aspects of the game. You will need to do all sorts as President, such as research projects, manage foreign relations, sign or reject bills, appoint your cabinet and manage crises. The more enjoyable aspects are funding projects and tackling global diplomacy via the world map. Firstly, research falls into various different categories, and can be used to influence your stats depending on your goals, as well as improve your standing on the world stage. As with every decision, there are both advantages and disadvantages to be considered.
The global map is reminiscent of Defcon (look it up, it’s a brilliant game) and you can filter your view depending on numerous factors, such as relationship to the United States as an example. It’s from here you can investigate, carry out trade deals, invade and even nuke other countries clean off the map if you wish. Other, slightly less exciting, tasks include shuffling your cabinet around depending on the skills they have, agreeing to interviews and participating in press conferences. Oh, and logging in to your favourite social media app, Screecher. Sadly, each of these scenarios is the same as the bulk of the game, choosing responses to navigate scripted conversations.
The most exciting part is probably election night, where you get to see the results come in state by state, complemented by a Screecher running commentary. Of course, the American system means a president can only be re-elected once and serve a maximum of two terms. Or so you may think.
Anyhow, I’m sad to say that despite being the most powerful person in the world, I am Your President is actually quite dull. There is some variety in what you do, but the foundation is simply answering questions from your desk in the Oval Office (and very occasionally aboard Air Force One).
I am Your President has three difficulty settings, however I must admit on my first attempt (despite selecting the middle one) I still got an absolute pasting in the election. I had to dial things down to the easier option. This was a symptom of me not really understanding the impact of my choices on the varying stats. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes it felt random.
The script in I am Your President refers to plenty of recent real life events from U.S. politics, and even has a few cheeky nods to them through some interesting name choices for the in game characters. It’s clearly a satire of recent U.S. politics. However, at some points it isn’t just tongue in cheek but it’s downright ridiculous. Foul language crops up out of nowhere, and some of the exchanges from visitors who stroll into the Oval Office wouldn’t sound out of place in an episode of EastEnders. At one point someone from your past threatens to blow up a load of kids because when you were both youngsters you made him drink from a puddle and fall ill for a few days. Seriously.
When it comes to the visuals in I am Your President, let’s say the wobbling photo realistic cutouts of various visitors to your office is an interesting choice. To be blunt, it’s not a good looking game by any metric, even the imaging on the Oval Office rug is incredibly low res for some unknown reason. The grammar is a little iffy at times too, and the eagle eyed will notice infrequent spelling mistakes and words that seem to have lost a letter somewhere along the line. I also had an issue with a menu overlaying permanently onto my home screen several times, and there was no way to solve it other than restarting the game. Not even reloading from my last save would clear it.
My stats didn’t seem to match the summary screen at the end of each day as I played either, in one instance preventing me from hitting one of my promises. Also the save menu got stuck and became unresponsive at one point, so I couldn’t bookmark my progress. Thankfully five minutes later it started working again.
Also, despite achievements being listed on the store page, there doesn’t appear to be any available thus far. This coupled with a “network issue” error each time I loaded up the game and having to select the offline option, shows there are a few unfinished elements to I am Your President for Xbox. Unfortunately it became clear that these issues were more than rough edges, and fundamentally impacted my ability to enjoy a game I was already having issues with.
I am Your President does little to bring to life the mix of emotions that come with being the most powerful person in the world. Uninspiring gameplay, a confused tone and a whole host of gremlins in the system make this one to avoid.
