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.

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.