This Is The President is a political strategy management game where we make difficult decisions as the Commander-In-Chief of the USA.
The twist, however, is that we did not become President to serve the American people. Instead, our hidden agenda is to pass an amendment that ensures we avoid jail despite our dodgy past.
Each term in office presents us with different objectives that help achieve that goal. Unfortunately, there are lots of factors that keep distracting us, creating a satirical theme that is very on-point and funny.
We must manage our staff, make seemingly endless policy and dirty political decisions, and constantly monitor our public approval rating so we can stay in office. All while keeping track of our finances - because being a corrupt President involves lots of expensive blackmailing, sabotaging, and worse.
There's a lot of fun to be had with this premise. Each action has consequences and many directly influence the main plot to keep us engaged. For example, our staff will resign if we work them too hard, but we can cheer them up by sending them on holiday or by giving them cocaine.
There's a great sense of pace to the story, and the main characters are all strongly written, with my favorite being our frat-boy Vice-President who is very loyal but a walking PR disaster. The biggest downside is that some of the game's text is too small to be easily readable.
This is The President is a $9.99 premium game. Since the outcomes of our decisions are somewhat unpredictable, I was always eager to get to the next turn to see if things went to plan or not-something that made the game strangely addictive. It's a game with many hours of gameplay and a good degree of replayability that I think many will enjoy.