Video Gaming’s ‘Greatest’ Politicians

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

You might have noticed that there's a general election looming in the UK (and if not, get yourself over to VICE's coverage of it, pronto). Seems a reasonable time to look over some of the "greatest" politicians to have graced video games, doesn't it? It does. So we will.

Once a wrestler, now mayor of Final Fight's Metro City, Mike (pictured above) isn't someone who you'd want to get on the wrong side of during a debate, given he'd likely counter your position on immigration with an argument-ending clothesline. But while he's certainly a hard man, his record in office isn't bulletproof. In 1989's first Final Fight, he was one of three tough customers who stood up to the plague of the Mad Gear gang. All was quiet for a while, but four years later Mad Gear resurfaced in the sequel, going on a rampaging road trip across Eurasia. Way to palm your problems off on other people there, Mike.

Indeed, over the years the paths of various gang types and this muscle-bound bylaw imposer have crossed repeatedly, and our hero has never quite buried the criminal menace threatening his townspeople as the voting public would expect. He's also easily distracted, turning up at wrestling events when he should be signing off new contracts for local waste recovery and in Flash-powered cartoons, not to mention bagging cameos in several more Capcom crossovers. C'mon, Mike, seriously: Think of those you serve before you serve yourself.

As in, the one seen (and played as) in Saints Row 4 who, unlike Haggar up there, has the whole world to think about when it comes to combating an alien invasion. And how is he—or she—going to do that? By crashing a VR version of an entirely made-up all-American town, murdering NPCs with dubstep, showcasing an array of superpowers, and escaping the bowels of the enemy mothership to the strains of Haddaway's eternal "What Is Love" while also gently taking the piss out of Star Fox. Oh, baby, don't hurt me—just take my vote. (The use of Stan Bush's "The Touch," and that dialogue, seals the deal, as per the below video.)

You see this prick? Massive prick. A difficulty-spiking prick of the highest magnitude. The Colorado senator, campaigning for presidency in 2020, is the final boss in Platinum Games' generally incredible Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a game so deliriously brilliant and dizzyingly fast that they had to give it the maddest title they could in order to keep complete idiots from picking it up expecting a standard Metal Gear experience.

At the climax of a series of events so bewildering that outlining them here would turn the average reader's eyes to the very finest dust—at one point you're fighting a guy with detachable arms who throws helicopters at you, just because—this governmental meathead, loaded up on strength-increasing nanomachines, represents an unbeatable wall of flesh and steel that our man Raiden's most furious fists and flashiest kicks can't leave a scratch on. But salvation comes in the form of a mechanical wolf thing that tosses Raiden the sharpest sword the world has ever seen, which he swiftly thrusts into the guts of the errant Armstrong, before pulling out his heart. Game over. No, really: that is the end of the game.

An anthropomorphic purple rabbit from the future who wants to be mayor. Only in vidya. (As featured in the forthcoming indie game Not a Hero, which we played here and will soon have a fresh feature on, so, keep those not-yet-disintegrated eyes open, if you're into pixely gore.)

Seen House of Cards? Kev is right good in that as a politician overlooked for a promotion who then takes it upon himself to strive for even greater power, ultimately becoming the President of the United States (albeit one without spaceships or a fine collection of early 1990s Europop). In 2014's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Kev's meaner still, playing the part of a private military CEO and showing up at the United Nations to tell those assembled that they're the problem with the world. Which means he's not actually a politician himself, but his actions are very much in keeping with those specializing in power play maneuvers. He talks the talk, too, spending the first half of the game acting like butter wouldn't melt and smarming up to Troy Baker before revealing the knife he had on him all along and twisting it down, deep. What a shame, then, that just a few in-game hours later he'd fall to his death as everything he'd previously built up collapses around him. Shame, shame, shame.

The Tri-Island Area's boss lady was once envisioned as a hard-edged, no-nonsense character in the Monkey Island series, but she's a lot more memorable the way her makers ultimately realized her: a love interest for our incompetent hero Guybrush, sure, but absolutely independent, fiercely brave, and wickedly intelligent, and the exact opposite to so many damsel-in-distress types populating video game narratives (like, say, Mushroom Kingdom ruler Princess Peach). She wasn't all that much help in The Curse of Monkey Island, spending much of that game as a solid gold statue, but she races to Guybrush's aid in the first installment of LucasArts' pioneering pirate tales, and would have prevented his lungs flooding right through if we, the player, hadn't already intervened.

Monkey Island's very final scene of action is Elaine's moment to really shine. In Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island, as Guybrush is rendered, well, fairly dead, it's up to her, alongside bounty hunter Morgan, to finally send series villain LeChuck packing. Which she does, with the pointy end of a sword, and they all live happily ever after. Which is rubbish because another Monkey Island game would be lovely. Send your letters to Disney, and hope they don't Caribbean it all up.

Nintendo's Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. for the 3DS stars the 16th President of the United States, in which he battles aliens as captain of an airship called the Lady Liberty. And yes, I am getting this information from Wikipedia because the game itself is not out in the UK until the middle of May, so I'm yet to play even a second of it.

The premise—a president appearing in a game whose play is set within the frames of a comic book and also features Queen Victoria, the Lion from The Wizard of Oz, and Lovecraft's Necronomicon—isn't that hard to get a handle on. What is: the Gamergate-opposing Wheaton starring in the same game as the Gamergate-creating actor Adam Baldwin, who voices lead protagonist Henry Fleming. Were the two ever in the same studio, do you think? Perhaps their collaboration is a sign that, hey, all of this nonsense has blown over. Wouldn't that be nice?

Follow VICE's coverage of the real-life UK election here.

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