While it is probably for the better that the game isn’t taking itself too seriously, in its current state I’m uncertain about the game because of how whacky it is. Political settings can be humorous – Yes, Minister, The Thick of It and The Death of Stalin show that (though admittedly the theme there is “everyone trying to take themselves seriously while being inept in a complete clusterf**k”) – but there’s something about the tone that’s somewhat off-putting. Simply put, I think it’s the exuberance of the writing style and the choices. For instance, the comments on selecting country choices at the end don’t really seem to add anything. It seems to be attempting to play stereotypes for humour, but that doesn’t really seem to work.
While it is interesting to contrast the “public” and “private” personas of the PC, the latter opportunities only seem to allow the PC to either throw away any restraint with abandon or to remain (and seemingly be judged by the game and everyone) to be a dispassionate iceman.
To add to that, there are some characters that seem to be “random” for the sake of it, like Air Force One’s pilot, and don’t really seem to add anything but pad it out. Similarly, the COG mentions were far too self-referential and went on for far too long in my opinion.
There are some bits that left a better impression in my first playthrough, such as the reaction to the airstrikes and the interview with Jill itself. While I wasn’t fond of how hard the game appeared to be pushing romances on people you’ve just met, I actually liked the scenes with the VP, though I would have preferred it (and most of the romances) to have gone slower.
It’s early days, but I feel you missed an opportunity for background to come in with the “security assessment” with the nerf guns and a military-background PC. Similarly, the generals could make a few extra, approving comments for a military-background PC, and the VP/Speaker/anyone in Congress make comments about political-background PCs. That being said, I can’t see how the PC could have become a 4-star general. Even making it to colonel would be a feat and be a higher rank than most of the 20th century presidents, and those that did served in WWI or WWII.
There were a couple of typos here and there, as well as grammar issues and wrong names/words popping up, but I don’t think that’s quite as important at this stage as setting the tone. It’s the author’s purview to write the story however they like, but currently I feel it lacks consistency in tone. Sometimes it appears to be taking itself relatively seriously, then there’s a massive curveball into something that clearly isn’t. Of course it’s fine for the tone to change throughout (Yes, PM’s scene on Trident is a brilliant example of this), but so far it seems like it doesn’t quite know what it’s trying to be.
Interested to see how this goes.
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