If you think the French presidential elections are boring, as many French do, you might be tempted to try “Elections 2012: En Route Pour l’Elysée” (Elections 2012: On the Road to the Elysée), a new PC video game that lets you get into the shoes of a candidate and campaign your way to the presidential office. But against all odds, simulation game studio at Eversim has seemingly managed to make the game even worse than the original.
Full disclosure: I cannot judge this game the only way a true gamer can because I have not played it. Also, different gamers have different standards and different tastes. Simulation games never were my cup of tea, for instance.
But I have watched this long, painful teaser for the game; and I find it is a sufficient deterrent for any sane gamer out there :
Ignore thrilling game features such as “HUNDREDS OF QUANTIFIED POLITICAL OFFERS” or “CALCULATE THE PROJECTED DEFICIT BUDGET;” they are, after all, a staple of simulation games that try to replicate real world conditions and mechanics. Neither is there anything wrong with taking a serious topic and turning it into a video game. The serious gaming industry is booming and enables important subjects to reach new audiences.
The real problem here is not the idea of a 2012 French election game itself, but the way the project was carried out. Graphics are not pleasing to the eye and the interface is far from ergonomic, as you can see below. Simulation games are never the most appealing in terms of graphic design, and you can’t expect CGI quality for 19.95 Euros. A better idea would have been to stay minimalist but slick.
Screenshot of the "Elections 2012" game interface
Gameplay, according to reviews, is repetitive and confusing. You can listen to an explanation by one of the developers on France Info here. But according to video game portal Jeuxvideo.com:
Even if the proposed events are varied and credible (the game is regularly updated to stick to the news), and even if the quantity of potential promises is astronomical, the gameplay is all to often a repetition of the following sequence: I select my destination, I choose my promise, and I measure its effects on polls.
To be perfectly fair, that does sound like your average campaign, and you can’t blame a simulation game for trying to stick to reality. But the story line is the biggest problem with this game.”Elections 2012″ simulates real politics to the point where the events, candidates and proposals are all copied and pasted from the actual campaign (one impressive aspect of the game is the effort put into dubbing, with hours of original voice acting by real comedians). This is fine for a Flight Simulator or a Football Manager, where the player wants to have an exciting and realistic game experience. But politics were dull to start with, and instead of trying to spice things up, Eversim merely replicated that boring experience on a PC.
Unfortunately this reminds me of one of the industry’s worst trends, i.e, using any action movie as a pretext for banging out a poorly designed and overpriced game, hoping that unexperienced buyers won’t tell the difference. The same has happened here, only this time with politics.
The result? An epic fail. Jeuxvidéo.com rated the game with an abysmal 8/20. Unless you are an absolute junkie for French politics, this game will provide mild entertainment for an hour at best. After that, even the real campaign might start to seem exciting.
Geeking the Elysée 