Crisis in the Kremlin, published by Spectrum Holobyte, Inc. in 1991, allows the player to take the role of the head of one of three political parties (radicals, moderates, or traditionalists) and starts you in control of the USSR in 1985. The goal of the game is to stay in power as long as possible (up to 33 years), but nothing stops the player from creating his own goals.

The most interesting feature of the game is the crises. They are events that are triggered at the appropriate time or when certain elements of your nation reach critical levels. For example, the Chernobyl disaster will occur and the player is given several choices -- the player can take the historical option or make his own decision and change the outcome. Likewise, if your food stocks run low, you are presented with a famine crisis where you can take options ranging from requesting foreign aid from the US to using troops to suppress the rioters.

However, the player needs to keep all the parties appeased enough to prevent them from voting him out of office with a vote of confidence. The idea behind the game is to make the changes you want slowly and cautiously so as to stay in power.

The game teaches the player negotiation skills because he needs to balance many factions all at once while still retaining the upper hand. Because balance is needed, I found the moderate faction the easiest to play; it is easiest to balance all the factions' happiness while still maintaining the moderate's party goals. The game also teaches history in a way. It doesn't give perfect details, although the crises are based on real events; but it gives an idea of the political and economic situation during the end of the Soviet Union. No matter what choices the player makes, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the Soviet Union beyond 1991, reflecting the collapsing situation of the real Soviet Union.

The game is too complicated for younger children to play, and they would probably be bored with all the text the player needs to read. I found that the text was interesting and descriptive, but for many people it would be detrimental to the experience.

The graphics are clean and nice, though dated. They do a good job of showing you what you need to see; but there isn't any extra detail. There is little to no help system, which is a shame; but the basic concepts of the game are simple enough to grasp by trial and error. I was able figure the game out enough not to get voted out of office on my third try through the game.

There are a couple bugs, though they deal only with the time after 1991. The game creators couldn't use historical events after that because they didn't know what was going to happen; so there are a few repeating crises that don't make any sense. For example, I ended up giving the Kuril Islands to the Japanese three times and the Berlin wall fell on three separate occasions as well. These aren't really an issue, though, because they happen rarely and don't really affect the game.

This game is playable for anyone in high school upwards; and I think it gives a good insight into the difficult choices that were made during that time and why they were made, which is difficult to convey.

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