The Political Machines 2008 is not a hard game to learn, but as most Stardock games go, it is a hard one to master.

The interface and the controls are easy to learn. For the most part you just need a mouse in order to play this game. The keyboard helps, especially if you plan on creating a custom character (you can't name that character using just the mouse).

Talking about custom characters, the only drawback that I have found with this game is the fact that your character cannot run as an independent party. I don't know if it was something overlooked by Stardock or deliberately left out, but when creating your character, you can only make it a Republican or a Democrat. And now, back to the clicking...

Left click here, right click there, you get the idea. And when you consider your turn complete, just click the advance week button, then you can left and right click all over again, all the way until Election Day. So what do all the clicks do for you? Assuming that you're clicking with a purpose and you set up your campaign the right way, you become president and get to move into the White House. Free housing; now that's a bargain!

And now, it is time to explore all this clicking in a bit more detail. Just as in a real political campaign, this game also focuses on real factors of politics. You can create ads for newspapers, radio or TV. Newspapers are least effective but also the cheapest, while the TV advertisements are quite expensive, but are the most efficient. Fundraising is also a big part of the game. All those ads do not pay for themselves; the people do. And it is up to your candidate to do the best job of raising those funds. Different states have different wealth, but you had better be careful: you can only bleed a state so much before it runs dry. Speeches, interviews, special interest groups, activists, scandal mongers, the list goes on and on and on. This is actually a very complex game, and at times it can even get a bit overwhelming. At least it is a turn-based game, so you can take all the time you need to during your turn to figure things out.