Bear with me, as this one's a little confusing at first. There are two Democracy games due for an imminent release - Democracy and Democracy 2. Although they are made by the same people, one is new and the other is a re-release, and they are actually rather different from each other, despite having the same basic premise of fighting and winning an election. Here I am previewing the re-release of a game that originally appeared online in 2005, which seems slightly strange - but I take what I'm given. It seems strangely fitting that a rehash of a two-year-old game sees you playing the role of politicians, who know a great deal about taking old ideas and presenting them as new.

In Democracy you take on the role of one of twelve world leaders, with the ultimate goal of living to fight another day at the polls - sadly the game simplifies this to a degree and for each nation you only require over 50% of the electorate's support in order to be re-elected and begin the whole process over again. You have to appease the various conflicting voter opinions and demands by implementing policy and fiddling with budget allocations. As with real politics, you will find that there's nothing simple here and you cannot make the slightest move to appease one group without irking another - a classic example of this is introducing carbon emission limits, which reduces air pollution, delights environmentalists and increases life expectancy but irks capitalists and business owners. The beauty of the game is that you will often find yourself having to make concessions on your ethics in order to remain electable (depending on the difficulty level); after feeling a swell of pride in my socialist French paradise on normal mode (80% of the electorate can't be wrong - well, they can, but this lot weren't), said pride forced me to reattempt the experiment on a hard mode in Britain, only to see an assassination attempt on me by religious extremists, resulting in a game over just over a year away from my first term in office. This delivered two harsh but necessary lessons: 1) The game is certainly not too easy, and 2) virtual Britain isn't ready for legalised prostitution.

If the idea of fiddling with budget allocations brings on a bout of chronic narcolepsy then I can guarantee that this isn't the game for you. Likewise, those who find graphs and reams of text unappealing would do well to look elsewhere (and probably stop reading my copy while they're at it - I haven't drawn a graph yet but don't tempt me!) because that's what this game comprises of - and it's a little disappointing, something that Democracy 2 has apparently tried to liven up with some more graphical variety. Text boxes, graphs and a bitmap background are the order of the day here and it's easy to see why this won't be a big seller; its niche market approach and an appearance that has more in common with a PowerPoint presentation than a videogame will most likely put a lot of people off. That said, despite its complex appearance, navigating the game is actually simpler than it first appears. After an initial fifteen minutes of panic-laden confusion, I quickly found myself understanding all the options and considering it to really be quite simple, despite ignoring the recommended in-game tutorial after ironically missing it on the easy-to-understand menu system! Still, graphics lovers and those with a low text-reading threshold will find this of little comfort.

Likewise, the sound is somewhat limited; although the music is rather nice and involving, it darts between meandering pleasantness and dark foreboding in such a way to make you think it's context sensitive when in reality it's all just part of the background music. The sound is virtually non-existent and a bit of a mixed bag - on one hand the cheers and rounds of applause upon succeeding in being re-elected never grow old, but on the other the stereotyped accents of the introductory messages from each country are wholly unnecessary and succeed only in cheapening what elsewhere is a fascinating and educational experience. It's not an exaggeration to say that this is a brilliant way to get your head around a simplified version of politics and it wouldn't be too far a stretch to say it could be a valuable part of the national curriculum - and not just in my pinko-liberal-lefty-wefty-nanny-state version of Britain from the game, either.

As a preview copy, there are a couple of things that should be corrected when it is re-released next month. Firstly, although the grammar and text is generally intelligently written, it seems to swap between upper and lower case in the pre-generated status updates, presumably because there's a number of ways in which sentences can be generated. These little slips stand out like a sore thumb in the text - and in a game where the written word plays such a major part, such cosmetic improvements could really improve the polish on the title. Likewise, there are some confusing ways in which the sliding scales in each category are organised - while being in the red in environment means you're as helpful to the planet as an overspilling landfill, being in the red on unemployment means that your people are mostly in work. This makes sense logically, but in practice it's a bit confusing and left me confused as to why implementing import tariffs resulted in my unemployment bar going further into the red.

I'm feeling pretty positive about what Democracy offers; at a retail price of £14.99 it provides a pleasingly in depth strategy experience that won't take you all night to get somewhere with. As you can only make around two changes per turn and each turn occupies a three-month period of government, it is easy to see your policies having an immediate impact and this makes it one of the first 'pick up and play' strategy games I've played. If a DS version was created then I'm pretty sure I'd be all over it - and it makes an intellectual partner for Football Manager and Solitaire on my desktop. Both of these are quality games and to be included in this pantheon of desktop greatness should be a pleasingly strong endorsement to the little niche politics sim that could.

Previewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).