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Something for the weekend: Political games

Not much gets our vote when it comes to recreating the thrill of election day on your mobile phone

Something for the weekend: Political games
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You couldn't escape the political turmoil in the UK over the past few days – just ask Prime Minister Tony Blair, who surely wanted to.

With the Labour Party receiving its marching orders in yesterday's local elections, Charles Clarke getting the boot for losing lots of dangerous prisoners that the police had already managed to round up once, and John Prescott pictured in the papers hugging a woman, this week was a very long one in British politics.

But what are our options of engineering a spot of political downfall on your mobile phone?

Limited, it turns out. A quick trawl through our archives threw up no pure UK political games at all.

We did find talk of Bush Vs. Kerry game, but does anyone even remember when he was a real potent force in politics? And whatever happened to Kerry? (Chortle chortle.)

Games designers! Go and create General Election: The Game, and thank us in the credits!

In the meantime, there are a couple of games the power-hungry can turn to. Our review found Age of Empires II lacking in the diplomacy department, but then again perhaps that's pretty accurate of the modern democratic process. Ancient Empires 2 got our coveted Gold Award, but it's even more up-and-at-'em than Prescott facing a heckler.

Political themes do sometimes seep into game design. Conflict Global Storm and Oil Wars both offer the opportunity to rewrite recent history, although we haven't got around to writing reviews yet. Besides, if global politics is all about big bucks these days, maybe Monopoly Tycoon would be more appropriate anyway – our reviewer thought it was bang on the money.

But we're struggling, let's face it. Red Faction has nothing to do with the birth of New Labour, and Rise of the Apocalypse has nothing to do with its downfall, and they're mediocre games to boot.

To hell with it. Why not just go nuclear with Cuban Missile Crisis.

(All the highlighted games are available now – so if you fancy something for the weekend, simply click on the game name to go to a no-fuss, no subscription games buying page).

Weekend Forecast: Scattered showers nationwide and looking increasingly overcast in the Blair household.