Super Obama World, Immitation is Indeed the Highest Form of Flattery

If you’re reading articles at GotGame, chances are you’ve played Super Mario World. If you haven’t, punch yourself. And then try to find a copy on eBay or something, because it’s a great game. For the rest of you SNES-literate readers, chances are you’ve kept up with the most recent run for the oval office. Well, the good folks over at Zensoft are in the exact same boat and have decided to showcase their appreciation for both Super Mario World and president-elect Barack Obama by creating Super Obama World.

The game places you in the shoes of an 8-bit Barack Obama as he traverses the harsh landscape of Alaska and does jump-button battle with pigs, lipstick-clad bulldogs and money bag-wielding lobbyists. Alaska governor and former VP hopeful mini-boss Sarah Palin even makes an appearance atop her trusty snow machine.

This game is rife with political satire. There are currently three levels: “Thanks but no thanks,” in which Obama is confronted with the dreaded bridge to nowhere, “For everything else there’s the RNC” which sports versions of some of the most expensive retail outlets in the world, and “I can see Russia from my house!” where you actually pass St. Basil’s Cathedral prior to your encounter with Palin.

As far as flash platformers go, this game isn’t bad. The controls can be a little unresponsive at times, but you start with 50 lives and each level is loaded to the brim with US flag pins which work exactly like Mario’s gold coins, so any deaths caused by sticky controls won’t penalize you too terribly much. On top of that, there is no game over screen at all; you can keep playing with zero lives without any visible penalty.

That issue might change with future additions to the game. According to their ‘More Levels’ page, Zensoft plans on adding additional content to Super Obama World in the coming weeks, including levels placed in Arizona, Chicago and even the District of Columbia.

This game doesn’t try to stack up to the title it draws its inspiration from, but it is a fun way to kill ten minutes at the office, and the imagery is enough to tickle your inner pundit’s funny bone.