Election Quest

Election Quest will appeal primarily to those fascinated by United States politics in 2004. Few others will have interest in it, as the gameplay is too weak to appeal to gamers.

The strength of Election Quest is its humor. Seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger drawn as The Thing (think Fantastic Four) and Bill Clinton as a cigar-smoking centaur is funny. Unfortunately, the gameplay is less inspired.

The rules as included with the game involve no strategy at all -- the result of the game is entirely random. Players each flip a card and compare a pre-determined characteristic (e.g. strength, charisma, wisdom, leadership). The card with the better number wins. This process is repeated until only one player is left with any cards.

"More ways to play" are promised at www.electionquest.com, but none are available as of the date of this review.

Politicians and other public figures included in the deck are "Leftians" Al Sharpton, Ted Kennedy, Ralph Nader, the two-headed monster Robbins Sarandon, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Noam Chomsky, Howard Dean, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Bill Clinton and John Kerry; and "Rightians" Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ann Coulter, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan (whose "all star" card cannot be played!).

I very much wanted to enjoy Election Quest, but the only value I see in it with the current rules is as a collector's item. I do believe that there's enough here to develop a fun game, but it hasn't been done yet.