"Initially entertaining, but suffers from a lack of variety that becomes noticeable all too soon."

The internet may seem at first glance to the casual tabloid reader in the street to be full of nudity and conspiracy theories. We all know that isn't true, since not all pornography involves nudity. However, NationStates is an online game that allows you to dictate the nudity and be master of your own conspiracy theories by giving you the chance to run your very own country for just a few minutes of your time as often or as not-so-often as you please. Thankfully, all your citizens are (I really hope) mere pixels on your screen and therefore none of your judgements actually affect anything in the real world whatsoever, allowing your experiments with their lives and livelihoods to not get you thrown into jail. This has led to an extremely varied audience participating within the international community there, ranging from classes full of schoolchildren learning to be responsible citizens to crazed sadists desperate to execute as many of their own nation's inhabitants as possible.

The mechanism of NationStates and inherently, its premise, is to emulate national and international politics within a virtual global community in a fun and accessible way. The game is entirely text-based and the pace of the game is customisable to the player's individual needs; for example, you can select an option to limit play to weekdays only in case you only have internet access via an office or university connection. A very welcome innovation in online gaming. Upon registering on the site, a series of options are selected via a required form so that the game's engine can pre-determine what kind of leader you are going to be, and then pigeon-holes you into an official United Nations classification category which will change as the game progresses. Since the game works in real-time, it is open-ended and so this category usually changes significantly during the course of play. Interestingly, membership of the United Nations is entirely voluntary (the player has to opt-in to join) and yet the receipt of their determined category name is not. My own nation started named as a "Compulsory Consumerist State" and still fluctuates between this and a "Corporate Police State", as examples of the names of these categories.

Each nation also is given a set of classifications showing the level of Civil Rights and Political Freedoms awarded by each nation to its citizens, along with an economic rating. These are affected directly on a daily basis by judgements that you, the player, make in running your country. These judgements are shown through a series of issues, which appear as a screen of text summarising the problem and presenting you with a series of options based on the demands of your people and the opinions of your advisors. These are typically either issues of legality or tax judgements, although there are a small number of moral decisions that you can make as well. This is where the game is weakest - a major complaint is that any attempt to improve the public facilities or civil rights of your citizens results in a detrimental impact on a nation's economy, which is by no means true to life. Striking a balance becomes impossible as you quickly realise that a strong economy is principally on this game only achievable through favouring business alone and keeping taxes as low as possible. On NationStates therefore, only the countries which would be classed as rogue nations in the real world are able to maintain a strong economy, which clearly holds no true representation of real life. This means that one of the game's selling points of being educational is rendered counter-productive - you can't teach children about politics and economics through a game which bears no resemblance to real politics or economics.

Further to this complaint, any decisions made by a nation have no effect whatsoever on any future issues that arise. For instance, on two consecutive days I made public nudity compulsory and also made it compulsory for women to cover up their entire bodies. This led to some very interesting information being displayed on my country's introduction page and also led me to wonder what the hell they were covering themselves up with! Repetition of these issues is a common occurrence and is noticeable very quickly when playing the game for weeks rather than days - the game has a fast turn-around of players to say that it has such a large userbase. The only sustained draw is the ability to become embroiled in international politics but there is limited scope for this. Anyone can establish a "Region", which is a grouping of nations usually with similar government types or goals, but to actually get involved on a wider scale one must join the United Nations, committing the player to their laws and guidelines and generally providing a detrimental effect to the players who are trying to run their corrupt dictatorship in peace.

Joining the United Nations can allow a player to gain a great deal of influence in the game - for instance, I joined the UN, rose to the position of Delegate for my Region and can now endorse policies on behalf of my entire region. Instead of having one vote in policy-making, I now have several votes, and therefore a bigger sway in international decision-making. I can also field and approve proposals placed by other players as well as propose my own policies. Whilst this doesn't make the game any more fun to play, it does allow me to feel like an active part of a community-based game and give me additional hope for change in the future. Sadly, although the complaints about individual issue repetition for those selectable by everyone are common to just about every player there, this situation does not seem to be changing. The international community in this case appears to have closed its doors to international complaints.

In summary, NationStates is a game with grand ideas and grand potential, but a lack of consideration to its users and a lack of realism means that it fails to meet its objective. It is fun for a while, but only if you play in a light-hearted manner and be prepared to take the whole thing as a tongue-in-cheek ironic view of international politics. No matter how often you hold elections in your nation, you are still in charge - the eternal dictator. Taking this seriously can lead only to disappointment. Hopefully, widespread dissent amongst its players will cause the broadening of its database and the introduction of workarounds for its flaws.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/05