REALPOLITIKS 3 REVIEW - WHEN AI ART MEETS POLITICAL CHAOS
Ever wondered what would happen if you fed an AI a history textbook, some LSD, and told it to make a grand strategy game? Well, Realpolitiks 3 is here to answer that question with all the grace of a drunk diplomat at a peace conference.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AI-GENERATED
First, let's address the four-fingered elephant in the room: the AI-generated art. Nothing says "modern political simulation" quite like having your world leaders look like they were drawn by a neural network that learned politics from watching soap operas. Bonus points for having every military commander look like they're their own identical twin – because apparently, military cloning technology is more advanced than we thought.
POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
The game promises deep political simulation but delivers something closer to political acid trip. Want to see the United States run by a randomly generated leader who might be a chauvinist black female president with an 80% Democrat Senate? You got it! Feel like turning Greece from a democracy to an elective monarchy to a technocracy to fascism in six months? Why not! It's like playing political musical chairs on speed.
BUGS, FEATURES, AND OTHER CAMPAIGN PROMISES
The number of bugs in this game would make an entomologist blush. Windows that can't be closed, save games that work about as reliably as campaign promises, and an economy system more mysterious than government spending. The UI is about as intuitive as tax code, and the tutorial is as helpful as a chocolate teapot.
THE TECHNICAL STATE OF THE UNION
Performance-wise, it's running about as smoothly as international relations during a trade war. Even on high-end systems, the game stutters more than a politician caught in a scandal. And let's not even talk about the stock market system, which appears to be as broken as... well, the actual stock market.
CONCLUSION
Realpolitiks 3 is like that politician who promises the world but can't even organize a bake sale. It's got ambition coming out of its ears, but the execution is messier than a filibuster food fight. The developers seem committed to fixing issues, but right now it's harder to recommend than a third term.
If you're absolutely desperate for a modern political simulator and have the patience of a UN peace negotiator, maybe wait for several patches. Otherwise, you might want to hold off until this political experiment stops looking like it was designed by a committee of random number generators.
6/10 - Like democracy itself: great in theory, messy in practice, and currently being held together with duct tape and hope.
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way. Though we might need therapy after seeing our leader's AI-generated four-fingered hands for the hundredth time.