This is clearly the right year and time for a game that seeks to showcase the difficulty and complexity of being the United States president. The politics of the U.S., an already exhausting topic due to the jingoistic presence that exists online, is now at full “hand in the blender” tilt and will not get better until after next March. So naturally the release of a game entitled I Am Your President which straight up paints the job as something linear, terminal and relying on coin flips is exactly what’s needed to help soothe everyone. Yes, it’s been out on Steam for over a year, but what about being able to play it on your Xbox, the most American of consoles?

Did you ever play Reigns and think “this needs to be more verbose and less fun?” Then I have amazing news for you! I Am Your President slots you into a white dude who spent his childhood mocking presidents (including an amazingly off-color opening joke about JFK) and now is stuck at the job. From the drop, he has a poor marriage, a lack of compassion and constantly waffles between two terrible options. Despite giving you a chance to do multiple tests to set up your party affiliation, political leanings and policy core goals, you ultimately just have one task: get through your scenario without zeroing out in any category. Make decisions on the daily, create or break diplomatic ties with other countries, do the ridiculous party tricks of press conferences and speeches and, most importantly, just keep the plates spinning!

Every day in I Am Your President takes place behind your big Oval Office desk, where you have people come to you with problems and then you choose what to say and do. Most of the time, there’s the “awful, terrible, obviously wrong” choice and the “awful, terrible, maybe okay” choice. The graphical decision to have everyone who comes into your office be a poorly rendered stock image of a real person on a wooden cutout feels like it’s trying to make a statement about the people who exist in governmental branches, but I’m hard pressed to figure out what that is. Is it that they’re one dimensional, or is it a very direct “wooden” parallel? In either case, the desired effect doesn’t come across well: the figures look choppy and ill fitting for the XBox, and I’m still using a last generation machine. 

After dealing with the stand-ins that enter your office, you may or may not engage in any number of activities. You can add points towards building certain projects that may help out overall but will deplete some other category (after all, increasing public healthcare will affect military enrollment). You might have an email about some bill you can either veto or pass, turning the public for or against you. There might be a global event that you can address or ignore, which might harm or hurt you. And there’s always reshuffling your cabinet to put people in different positions because…well, because why the hell not? There’s no actual consideration for their backgrounds, just what passive buffs they might give any part of your presidency.

Something that really misses the mark in I Am Your President is the escapist ideology that comes with a video game. For those of you who’ve played the Tropico series, the balance between banana republic governing and city building makes it fun and satisfying, sometimes even surpassing Civilization in terms of time expenditure. While I Am Your President fully axes any concepts of city or world building, there’s still the potential that exists for this to be either serious or silly. There are plenty of real world locations to partner with, recreations of current dramas and conspiracies (including aliens and Flat Earth), and the targets that you run towards are ones that presidents both past and present have addressed. I really wanted to work on a manned mission to Mars, so that was a goalpost for my play.

However, the fun just doesn’t exist. Your responses to journalists, advisors and serious decisions are binary, with neither having the flair or panache that I would bring to my own ruling time. The fact that you immediately have marital issues bothers the hell out of me: I’m not saying a President wouldn’t have some stress in supporting their family, but does it need to be something you encounter on day three? Additionally, a majority of the game is just reading people talking at you, deciding what snarky response will hurt your polls the least, and then balancing your numbers regardless of what it actually means or just letting your game tank itself.

For example, I nearly got a game over early on because I let my military drop to zero. Why? Because I’m putting all my points into supporting nuclear energy and social welfare, which is what I would like to see if I were President. Now, I suddenly need to make an emergency choice to prop up the numbers and, joy of joys, I can increase my military power if I start monitoring social networking on citizens. Perfect! Now I’m actively doing something I loathe to prop up a branch of the government that I have no interest in. Yes, we’re going to be several years behind UBI, but at least I keep buying massive tanks to protect TwitterSquawker!

I Am Your President is probably trying to make a point with these options, but what point exactly is it? Is it that a President has to make unpopular decisions in order to keep the country running, so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge? If so, what a numbingly terrible thing to lay down at the feet of voters in a cycle year. Instead of coming across like “The President is human and has to make the tough calls,” it plays as “The President will never make the right choices because he can’t, regardless.” It doesn’t humanize the title, it neuters it to make it seem ornamental and worthless, like being Emperor of Japan. Only at least the Emperor knows he only holds sway as long as he’s charming, whereas the President is ACTUALLY supposed to do something!

It’s a disheartening game that is tedious, seemingly random and honestly runs so terribly slowly on console. I Am Your President is trying to poke fun at the establishment and probably provide some spoof-esque humor, but the delivery is underbaked, flat and just a slog. For Americans, unless you’re already a zealot about the elephant or the donkey, this isn’t going to ingratiate the political circuit to you any further. If you’re from outside the U.S., I cannot imagine the appeal of this game in any capacity. If it’s something you’re truly curious about, grab it on PC when the price drops, but a Gerald Ford simulator on my Mountain Dew Box is the most assbackwards thing I’ve done this year.

Graphics: 5.5 The Oval Office looks alright in a two-generations removed sort of way. The cutout people appear exceptionally rough, like stills from a 2 megapixel camera were dropped into MS Paint. The balance overall wasn’t funny, but just felt awkward and uncomfortable.	Gameplay: 4.0 The minor points of the game – speech writing, press conferences, Squawker posting – were the most engaging despite being so short. Constantly talking to figureheads, choosing between two sentences and then dumping points into various projects was tedious, and progress never felt rewarding.
Sound: 6.0 Decent soundtrack, very orchestral and attuned to the mood of the day at any given time. Tracks were very short and looped constantly, but weren’t unpleasant. It felt like someone doing an elementary school band performance of The West Wing score.	Fun Factor: 3.0 Oh look, the game mentioned covfefe. Some people think the President is an alien and I have to address it. Now I can watch my ratings rise or plummet. Joy. Can I just abdicate and let the other dude do this?
Final Verdict: 4.0

I Am Your President is available now on Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

Reviewed on Xbox One.

A copy of I Am Your President was provided by the publisher.