Unless you have been living under a rock (or watching the World Cup) you may have heard that Mexico recently had Presidential elections and, surprise, the tally was way too close. Officially, Felipe Calderon (right-wing) has been declared the winner, but Lopez Obrador (left-wing) is contesting the results under claims of fraud. Let's hope that the Mexicans are better in math than the neighbors from the North.

In any case, I wanted to point out to Calderon's official website, which features campaign videogames. The biggest one, Carrera por la presidencia (Presidential race) is a Mario Bros. clone where the political adversaries are caricaturized as different kinds of animals (for example, the Mexican historic party PRI is featured as dinosaurs). The game was followed by a sequel: La Recta Final (which can be losely translated as The last mile) where the candidate must carry letters to form words while he travels through different platforms. As in any satyrical game, there are plenty of references that you'll lose if you are not familiar with Mexican politics (I am not but I played with the help of a Mexican citizen). You may recognize, however, Venezuelan President -and George Bush headache- Chavez.

What I like about these games is that, while official, they are very satyrical. In both games you play the candidate, who uses speech as a weapon. The games are professionally done, in spite of some annoying technical bugs (while jumping and firing.) It is certainly exciting to see more candidates worldwide using games as part of their campaigns. Play the games and, if you happen to be familiar with Mexican politics, feel free to chime in and add your input. (Gracias Pablo Martinez for the links).

*I should add that there is a third game. It's a finger soccer game that is not highly political (except that it features the picture of the candidate). Without a doubt, it is a consequence to the fact that the campaign took place during the World Cup and Mexico is a soccer-crazy country, so why not mixing the two things into a little game?

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