I will start by saying I only paid real money to avoid ads. If you’re having to fork out more money you aren’t budgeting your country correctly…The parallels with real life is the best feature. It gives you a chance to plot a different course of action. I ended the game with a 90% approval rating, 83% and up in every category. I hope they come out with a second term soon!

This game starts out fun, but it quickly becomes obvious that it’s designed to push you into spending money. Every major decision drains your cash, and before long you’re presented with objectives that cost billions while you only have millions. At that point, you can’t progress unless you wait an unreasonable amount of time or pay. It feels less like a strategy game where your decisions matter and more like a paywall disguised as gameplay. I don’t mind optional purchases, but the progression shouldn’t come to a complete stop because the economy is intentionally stacked against free players. There’s a solid game underneath, but the aggressive monetization ruins the experience. Until the balance is improved so free players can make steady progress, I can’t recommend it.

I’ve played this for a couple hours and here’s been my experience. Once finished appointing my cabinet I was hit with a timer of 30 minutes before I could continue, pay $60 a year, or watch 2 ads. I experienced the same set of events twice in a row at one point (setting annual budget), and had to watch an ad about every 10 minutes. Another time, a character came in and said he “had to make that comment but was still on our side basically, but I’d never seen that guy before. I think this game uses AI heavily in its generation and that’s what’s lead to some things just not making sense.

This is the first time I played a game like this, it gives you a few choices about how you’d run the country and the choice you make changes the story what happens, if you make the wrong choices it messes you up you have to try and stay popular. I love the design too so cool