Election Year Knockout

Every four years, whether we like it or not, game developers trip all over themselves trying to capitalize on the U.S. presidential election. They'll rush out one boring simulator after another centered around maps, graphs, charts and number-crunching. For 2020, ExceptioNULL Games decided to go a different direction. Their new game Election Year Knockout attempts to marry Mike Tyson's Punch-Out with political satire. That's not a bad idea, but after socking cartoony versions of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, I'm convinced that the developers are a little confused about how politics work in the United States.

Election Year Knockout tells the outlandish story of how an unknown pugilist and the ghost of John McCain team-up to create a new party and challenge politicians to a series of one-on-one fights in the boxing ring of their choosing. This means that he'll not only be taking on primary contenders like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, but also Republicans like Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Dan Crenshaw, who is mostly known for wearing an eye-patch and getting into a fight with Pete Davidson. All this is an attempt to shore up the votes he'll need in order to knock out the current resident living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I'll dig into the story and political satire a little later, but let's first talk about the boxing. As I mentioned at the start, this is what I would call a Punch-Out clone. It's the kind of boxing game where the opponents tower over our puny candidate, forcing us to use our limited jabs and hooks to win the day. The good news is that every politician has their own style and patterns, so a lot of the game comes down to dodging back and forth while waiting for an opening. Once you've mastered their predictable patterns, you'll quickly knock them out and move on to the next part of the country.

There's nothing new or inventive about this type of gameplay, but the formula still works. It's fun figuring out the different patterns, especially when there are so many wacky characters in the mix. For example, the Elizabeth Warren parody sees her firing boxing glove arrows at our hero, while Ted Cruz fights back using weird supernatural powers. Best of all, a lot of these opponents will change up their patterns halfway through the fight, forcing us to memorize a whole new set of attacks.

It's important to remember that Election Year Knockout costs $20. That's a bit steep for what amounts to a Punch-Out clone, even a solid one. The limited moves and opponents means that you can beat the game in a single sitting, usually without much hassle. This is an easy and repetitive game that relies on its comedy to push it over the finish line. Unfortunately, that means that we need to talk about the comedy.

As political satire, Election Year Knockout is incompetent. The jabs and barbs are so off-base that I'm convinced that this was designed by somebody who has absolutely no understanding of American politics. Sure, they know some of the players and heard a few late-night jokes about them, but that's as deep as the satire gets. It's the kind of game that wants to be edgy and biting, but is ultimately toothless and clueless.

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A good example of this is when our third-party hero takes on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York City Democrat who surprised everybody by beating a longtime incumbent and becoming the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress. So, given this information, why does Election Year Knockout insist that she's a Republican? And what does knocking-out AOC have to do with becoming president? Not only is she not running this year, but she can't even if she wanted to -- she's too young. Just like our hero, who is clearly not over the age of 35.

A big problem with the comedy is that most of it feels dated at this point. The jokes being made aren't just a few months old, but in most cases they are four years old. We start the game by beating up Jeb Bush, who has barely been in the spotlight since dropping out of the primaries four years ago. And speaking of 2016, Ted Cruz shows up with supernatural powers for some reason. Even more confusing is why they have the Texan fighting for Alaska, especially when you later end up going to Canada. The joke should have written itself.

Over on the other side of the aisle we see very few of the 2020 primary candidates show up in Election Year Knockout. There's not even a single nod to Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang or even Mayor Pete. These were some of the biggest newsmakers during the 2020 election, but you wouldn't know it based on this game. Even Bernie Sanders is ultimately upstaged by the bird that interrupted him back in 2016. Y'know, four years ago.

Look, this may seem petty to some, but if you're going to sell us political satire, then you need to know what you're talking about. The jokes don't land because they don't make sense. This isn't biting commentary, but rather the developers showing us that they don't have the faintest idea what's going on in the 2020 election. Considering how crazy this election has been, you would think that the jokes might write themselves. Unfortunately, the developers of Election Year Knockout wouldn't know political satire if it punched them in the face.