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Whatever the result of the election, you can change it thanks to Virgin's Election! Double-dealing, scandals, slurs and back-stabbing - all the fun of an election campaign without the part political broadcasts.

There are around 40 intelligent characters featured. From lowly minion to charismatic party leader, each varies in intelligence and personality attributes. Many of the others are just as ambitious as you and while you go about the business of rallying support, you must keep a careful eye on all the others.

The total electorate is comprised of 200 votes, 40 belong to the computer-controlled players and won by your interaction, the other 160 votes are won by careful placement of manifestos. You need 101 to win!

This game incorporates simulations of human personalities. The computer-controlled characters' personality attributes are: intelligence, loyalty, emotions, aggression, changeability, ambition and gullibility.

Characters' intelligence increases throughout the game. Feelings of loyalty are simulated too, characters do change their allegiance and you can win them over if you try often enough and hard enough.

Loyalty has an interesting side-effect in that characters feel a certain loyalty for other characters of their 'kind'. Extremists have a degree of loyalty for other characters of their 'kind'. Extremists have a degree of loyalty for one another regardless of which party they follow.

Emotions are portrayed by how friendly a character is.

The aggression factor measures the likelihood of the character to enter into slurring matches with others.

Changeability reflects each character's likelihood of changing political allegiance and contributes to their loyalty rating.

Initial ambition varies depending on the status of the characters, it can be fuelled by your actions and those of other characters. The more ambitious a character becomes, the bigger threat they are to you if they are not on your side.

Slurrability indicates the effectiveness of any smear attack you may bestow on the opposition.

As Party Leader credibility is of the essence, you must keep it high; if it reaches zero, the game is up.

The Quoon doesn't compete for followers and will not stoop to slurring under any circumstances. Likewise, she does not respond well to these tactics.

Tokens take immediate effect. Sincerity and Hope increase your Credibility, which is your life-blood.

Objects include Gossip, Scam and Untruths which increase your unseen "slurring power". When you have decided slurring is the only way to proceed make sure you are armed!

The Peerage, Rosette, Knighthood and Shares don't affect you but when given to your supporters it will increase their ambition, and their ability to carry out your orders.

You will find Manifestos (marked "M") which you must take to your party H.Q. to adopt party colours, then drop them in any of the sixteen special named locations in the game, this will immediately gain you ten votes.

Options you can access via the joystick-controlled menu include:

1. Take
   This option is automatic from the beginning of play but you may need to re-select after using another option, or after certain approaches by other characters. You can lift tokens or objects this way, but you can only carry four objects any time.
2. Drop
   You may deposit Manifestos in special locations or merely drop objects you no longer require to make room for new ones. Only four objects can be placed on the screen at any time. Also be careful not to place two manifestos on a special location at any time or you will lose one!
3. Give
   You can choose to give incentives or objects to a character. You can control how much you give, remember you can increase supporters' ambitions and make them more able to give orders on your behalf, but you don't want to increase the ambitions of a supporter of any other party! Computer-controlled people will sometimes be quite generous when canvassing for you, so keep a pocket empty for contributions!
4. Ask
   Simple questioning can help you find out about a character, perhaps they may indicate how they intend to vote. Alternatively, they may not wish to discuss anything with you.
5. Slur
   You may persuade a person to slur another on your behalf. You must first select who you wish to order, then once they have agreed to comply you must select the person you wish to receive the slurring. This may or may not work for a number of reasons. The loyalty of the character you have ordered towards you is important. They will be meeting others all the time who are bribing and canvassing just like you. Each order has a built-in boredom rating but luckily, slurring is the most interesting order you can give. Very intelligent supporters will automatically collect Scam or Gossip or some such "weapon" to aid their slur campaign, but with a less intelligent person you may have to give them such an object.
6. Canvas
   Send your supporters out to rally support for you in this way. You must select a supporter to give the order to and then indicate who the recipient is to be. You can delegate a lot of political legwork this way. An "undecided" voter will be much easier to persuade than someone committed to another party. You could try sending several people to canvass such a character. When other characters canvass you they may be willing to give you objects they are carrying so keep a spare pocket.

You can force a character to actually resign by reducing their credibility to zero, but this could happen to you too! Any valuables carried by the hapless candidate will be deposited as far as possible on the screen they resigned (look for a banana!) on, or elsewhere on the map.

When you select slur and the person you are attacking, the screen border will turn yellow for the duration of the attack. Get as close as possible and follow them so you are continually making contact but keep a close eye on your credibility rating!

If you wish to cease you can either run away (but will lose some face in the form of your future slur rating) or press Fire which allows you to concede. Doing so will cause you to lose your valuables, but at leasy you'll have some credibility at the end of the day!

Computer-controlled characters can also concede and will relinquish their valuables if the slurrer has enough empty pockets.

Each character is different. Some will never become your followers despite defeat, others will do so grudgingly and others would rather resign than give in!

You can save the game at any time and reload it later. A good feature this as Election is a game that will take quite a while to complete.

The characters in the game are thinly-disguised cartoon representations of the real people in politics and the media. You'll recognise them when you see them.

Election! is a lot more fun than watching a party political broadcast and despite being topical will probably outlast your average arcade adventure.