Hello, everyone! Due to a good stroke of good luck, I had just been browsing around one of my favorite gaming stores, when I noticed a strange and interesting looking little game. It was not one I had heard of, but it looked interesting. The case and back implied that the game was the challenge of maintaining and keeping a leader in place, while trying to balance economy, popularity, and presidential policies. Being a fan of games like Victoria Revolutions and Superpower, I was very very interested this, especially as it allowed my country as a playable option! And our rightful territory in Alaska, too, hah. 
So with that, I bought the copy of the game called Democracy, and took it home for a spin.
The installation was brief, concise, and to the point. No extra ‘luxuries’ or ‘sight grabs’ that so many feel are necessary these days. It was very short too, allowing me to jump right into the game; a major plus after a long day of work. Loading up, I was greeted with a very large flag background and some nice classical style music; leafing through the tutorial, it became self-evident that the box hadn’t lied: Everything from populace to taxation levels was accountable for, and it looked like it would be an incredibly serious job to keep everything in place. After playing through the nice tutorial, I loaded up Russia, with her not too bad national debt, and took a look at the policies. For my first playthrough, I will admit I had been weak and took off presidential power restrictions and set the difficulty to easy… But, hey, I was foolish and weak then, right? 
Managing taxes wasn’t easy, as I still managed to destroy the fragile economy with my ‘high’ taxes (Silly middle class, avoiding your rightful duties!) and draconian measures… Oddly, people were happy though, perhaps a by-product of the system I had set in place? There was the one thing I didn’t really see anywhere, corruption, that I had hoped to fight. This seemed very sad and disappointing, until…
An emerging black market appeared! A hard foe to counter, it was made up of tax-dodgers and elites who hoarded and sold, ruining the fragile system that we were trying to set in place! I realized that I couldn’t just muscle my way through changes, and loaded up a second game, addicted and well past one in the morning. This time, I turned presidential controls back on, and cranked the difficulty up a bit, now that I knew what I was doing. I realized that tweaking laws slowly, and helping things grow with a careful hand, was far more valuable anyway, and so that is precisely what I set out to do. The economy responded wonderfully, showing true thoughts and precision as to whomever coded it; I even believe inflation is factored in there somwhere, great stuff! With the policies at my presidential disposal, it was time to take control!
Well, it was a long journey. I did not get much sleep that night, but now I am awake and hoping to try round fourteen or so, and it just so happens that there is a sequel in production, a little bird tells me! Perhaps with ministers, advanced economic procedures and such… But, after spending so much time playing a video simulation of politics, perhaps I should avoid it, my ‘productivity’ will go down, and I will enter into a ‘brain drain’! :mrgreen: Oh, but I cannot ignore it; the replay value is fantastic, and my many friends interested in politics will certainly be delighted as it; I think it will be a good yuletime gift.
So for the rating process:
200/100, twice perfect score!
I do not know if you agree or not, my friends, but even still, this was my opinion, and I am glad to meet new people whom to talk to about it.