Tom Clancy's Politika (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.0 stars Mediocre
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 4.5 (2.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Stephen Poole
• Reviewed on: 03/03/1998
• Updated on: 05/02/2000
• Released on: 11/30/1997
• Originally published on GameSpot: Tom Clancy's Politika (PC) Review

During the introductory video clip that sets up the storyline of Tom Clancy's Politika, a news reporter seeking the author's insights on the implications of Boris Yeltsin's death asks him about the stockpile of nuclear weapons controlled by the Russian military. Clancy shakes his head and lets out a sigh before saying, "There's a lot of things to worry about right now, and that's one of them."

But don't get too revved up over the prospect of flexing some nuclear muscle in your bid to become the leader of post-Yeltsin Russia: Nuclear brinksmanship simply isn't a factor in the game. That might not sound like a big deal, but take my word for it - a few thermonuclear exchanges would go a long way toward livening up this wearisome "strategy" game.

Part Risk and part Diplomacy, Politika is essentially a PC translation of a board game of the same name in which three to eight factions compete for power in Russia following the death of Yeltsin. The designers' ambitions were admirable: They wanted to incorporate the social atmosphere of board games in a PC game, using the Internet as a sort of virtual living room. The result, though, is a single-player mode that's too shallow and tedious to be engaging for any substantial length of time and a multiplayer game in which the biggest challenge is finding other players.

At the start of a game, the computer randomly places "influence tokens" representing each faction in the various regions of Russia, then each player places two representatives of his faction in unoccupied regions of the map. Once all the representatives have been assigned to regions, the computer plops three uprisings onto the map; uprisings stifle production in a region, but if you've got a representative in a region containing an uprising you can move it elsewhere.

Politika is turn-based, with each player's turn divided into five phases: production, movement, trading, challenge, and buy cards. Production is when you collect cash; movement lets you move representatives and uprisings into new regions; trading gives you the chance to swap influence tokens with and loan money to allies; and challenge allows you to compete for influence against opposing factions in a region. Buy cards adds a huge element of chance to the game; fork out some of your cash, and you receive a random card that might add the extra strength you need in a challenge - or which might be totally useless because it can only be used in a region you've already written off as a lost cause.

To make things a little more interesting, each faction has a special ability: The KGB gets to steal a random card from another faction, for instance, while the military can move any uprising without having a representative in the region. And every phase of the game - how much production money you earn, how far a representative can travel, how strong a defense to a challenge is - is affected by a host of factors, from the playing of special cards to outside occurrences such as inflation.

Gaining influence tokens is the biggest factor in achieving the ultimate goal, and to do that you "challenge" an opposing faction in a region where one of your representatives is located. Challenges are resolved by rolling dice, with the attacker buying dice and both sides playing cards that can increase the number of dice they roll. Once the last turn is finished, you're treated to a video that announces which faction gained control - and if it's a flat-out tie (highly unlikely), you learn that Russia has completely collapsed and is facing invasion from every country surrounding it. (There're supposed to be videos of "breaking news reports," but the only videos are at the beginning and the end.)

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