Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW]

by **The_gh0stm4n** Wed 14 Dec 2016, 11:37

Hello all!

I only recently learned of the game "Mr. President", although it was released back in October already. After watching a video of the gameplay on YouTube, I thought I gave the game a shot myself. Razz

The game puts you in the role of a United States Secret Service bodyguard, with the overall aim of preventing various attacks on the (semi-) fictitious "President Rump".

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW] Screen10

The above situation shows my character managing to get in the line of fire and deflecting a bullet. Most attempted attacks appear to come from guns, but there are also things like bombs or even giant tacos falling from the sky.

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW] Screen11

In every level you need to overcome various obstacles, to get near the President at first. Obstacles can include furniture, piles of money "just lying around" or wooden barrels, among other stuff. Once you get near the President, you have to see what the best course of action is: either getting in the line of fire to deflect the bullet, or throwing yourself at the President straight away - timing is a crucial factor in this (mini-)game.

You can essentially repeat every scene, until you either get annoyed (leading you to quit the game), or until you pass the mission. The more you progress in-game, the more elaborate your rescue attempts and maneouvres need to be. All in all though, it is a relatively simplistic game, about movement, object manipulation, and the aforementioned aspect of timing.

One thing I noticed about the game were the ragdoll physics: if you were running, and you really just touched the corner of a wall or a chair, your character would then go into "ragdoll mode" and fly around crazily, adding even more slapstick to the game.

Various locations in the game include campaign events, someplace in the desert (in the previous screenshot, I assume that is somewhere on the border between the US state of Texas, and Mexico) and a Chinese factory.

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW] Screen12

As you might have guessed already, the game displays a very satirical stance; the loading screen shows a disclaimer that any similarity to a person living or dead "is purely coincidental", which alone doesn't have to mean much. But playing through the game, one will very likely notice certain things that appear ironic, even if you are unfamiliar with US politics. Such as in the following pictures:

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW] Screen13

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW] Screen14

The game hints on various aspects of the 2016 US presidential campaign. It is obvious the game attempts to bring across a critical or ridiculing stance on aspects of (contemporary) US politics. In this case, the 'message' is pretty obvious. In other (mini-)games though, the message may be a little less obvious, such as in Surgeon Simulator.

Whatever one might think about games that attempt to bring across a 'message', I (mostly) don't mind that type of game, and in the end many video games convey some sort of political/social/religious message, often in a subtle way and unnoticed by the mainstream.

The gameplay is very rudimentary, hence my use of the word "minigame" here, but I found the game hilarious, and it's again something slightly different that could be tried. Very Happy

by **☠ ~ Aɳɳ ~ ☠** Wed 14 Dec 2016, 15:15

It certainly looks hilarious! Laughing

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW]

Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW]

Re: Mr. President. [Game Developer X - REVIEW]