Democracy 2

January 23,2008 - Democracy 2 puts you back in power of a country, and things are a little different this time. With a completely updated interface as well as more complex interactions and more information to handle, running a country is actually entertaining. This sequel is better than its predecessor in every way.

Continuing their open source initiative, Positech Games has made Democracy 2 completely mod-friendly. All necessary files are easily accessible and easy-to-read text files that you can alter with a few keystrokes, meaning you won’t need an expensive license for a compiler. The text files also offer up a preview to what new situations you might run into during gameplay.

Gameplay has not changed much from the prequel- you take control of a country, run it for a determined period of time, and try to get re-elected. Voters fall under many categories, many of which are in direct opposition of each other, meaning you can’t always please everybody. Voters in Democracy 2 aren’t purely in one category anymore; one voter can have influences from both socialist and patriotic sources or liberal and alcoholic, etc. What’s more is that it is much easier to keep track of a groups’ opinion of your presidency this time around. Accompanied by a stereotypical picture of someone in that faction, you can view a focus group of voters in categories and see what their individual influences are and what they think of you right now.

The game still progresses in 3 month terms, but your political capital is additive now in that you won’t lose any unspent points between rounds. This new feature brings a new strategy of spending points to hand. Some new policies cost more political capital than others, and raising or lowering the amount your government spends on other policies also costs varying amounts of capital, meaning you need to spend your points wisely so you’ll have both enough to spend on what you want but also so you don’t have too many left over that could have been better spent increasing voters’ opinions of you. 

Another new feature is the cabinet system. You can now hire and fire ministers of your cabinet depending on how you think their loyalties fall in line with your visions. Be careful, though, as it is easy to get a cabinet member opposed to you if you don’t pay attention to the factions they are sympathetic to, which will make implementing new policies under that minister take more time. If you anger enough ministers, you’ll be thrown out of office before the end of your term. Another way your term might end early is if you neglect or purposefully anger a group of voters, like the patriots or religious. Democracy 2 introduces a host of extremist groups for each category of voters, and if you’re actively denying one the advantages they think they deserve, then you might wind up assassinated. Assassinations are only carried out via tongue-in-cheek text, so there’s comedy instead of gore to witness.

Situations are generally the same this time around as well, although there are more. You will have to appoint ambassadors, permit/disallow bans, regulate food, etc. You’ll also have to deal with certain events related to how well you are running your presidency. If you don’t spend enough money on your intelligence services, you may have to go through a terrorist attack or an assassination attempt. Most events negatively affect the peoples’ opinions of you, although a few such as Celebrity Endorsement benefit you. As a political simulation, you need to introduce new policies and regulate or cancel your spending in other ones to manage the tides of varying interests of the populous. On the whole, it rings accurate and very comprehensive for government management.

Audio and graphics suffer from the same problems as the last Democracy. While the specs to run this game are so low that a computer from the mid 90’s would run it without a hitch, the entire game is menu-driven without so much as a sniff of cut-scene or an abundance of pictures. There are admittedly some nice graphs to represent voter opinions as well as sleek frame designs containing information on each policy. As an entirely menu-driven game, Democracy does well to at least streamline the interface to make it easily accessible. While an incredible amount of information is always before your eyes, the game really looks much more complex than it is.

Audio is relegated to a secondary concern as well, with only one or two looping tracks playing during the course of your presidency and navigating the pre-game menus. Speaking of pre-game menus, in choosing your country you no longer pick real-world countries but thinly veiled, exaggerated versions of them. This exaggeration leads to a larger variety of countries to run as opposed to the mostly homogenized countries of Democracy 1. After choosing your country, you can move sliders to customize the current state of affairs before your term even begins.

When all is said and done, Democracy 2 far outshines Democracy 1 in every way imaginable. Positech expanded on gameplay, added a handful of new features, and made all the information presented more complex yet easier to manage at the same time. Audio and Video are still noticeably absent from the title, but Democracy’s focus is not on those things. The $23 price tag for a digital download is also a more attractive buy than the predecessor. We still can’t recommend Democracy 2 as a groundbreaking title for lack of content that will keep you playing longer than a few hours, but it’s at the very least entertaining and quite educational. We could see a Social Studies class possibly buying dozens of this game to instruct students on some of the finer points of national affairs, and the students would actually have fun learning.

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