Proving that games can have political agendas too, we take a look at Trillion Dollar Bailout, fresh off the line from the folks at Addictive Games.

How can I tell that the game has an agenda, you ask?  Well, it’s not tough.  Basically, you have two options–hand out bags of loot or slap petitioners for cash upside the head.  Seriously–your buttons are “bag” and “slap”, with accompanying sound effects. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the screen is a bar, ostensibly the economy.  You watch as your choices cause the bar to go up and down.  It’s interesting that most of the time, when you hand out large wads of cash to businesses, the bar goes down, whilst handing out the loot to homeowners (who ask for relatively little alongside the corps) usually makes the bar trend up.

Circumstancial evidence, you might say, indignantly.  All hearsay!  Well, if you still don’t think there’s an agenda from my admittedly roundabout proofs, how about this quote about the game’s description?

Punish greedy fat cats and save honest peoples! Hand out moneys to homeowners. Put the hurt on dudes in suits! Do it right and save the world!

Agenda?  Oh yeah.  The problem with this, of course, is that the agenda was the overmastering point of the game, to the point that they forgot to make a game.  If you play it exactly as described, you will win. The economy will recover.  Try it in a contrarian fashion (back the businesses) and it’ll be bread lines for all.  It’s a bad sign when they actually tell you how to win in the game’s description, and doesn’t make for much fun.  I like a hint when I’m stuck, not when I walk in.