Whack A Vote: Hammering the Polls is a VR only game set in a universe where you can only cast a vote by getting a rad new high-score on the whack-a-mole machine. Upon starting up the game you are in an abandoned building with a slip of paper asking you a few basic questions. You must fill them out with a colorful crayon of your choice but best hurry up and answer the form because the workers are having none of your nonsense and will jam you in the voting poll before you so much as scribble your dumb opinion. It’s really annoying actually, a man is trying to draw a pony and ‘The Man’ brings your hopes & dreams crashing down.
After being so rudely teleported into the poll and trying to smack the machine into working so you can just go home and catch up on Game of Thrones, you’ll notice a slot machine that dishes out taxpayer money. With rubber chicken in hand I walk over and pull the lever, half expecting a Swat team to rush in any moment. To my surprise I won and out came a plethora of gold coins. After trying to stuff them in my pocket and remembering that I’m in VR I sigh, then halfheartedly jam a coin into the machine. Chicken at the ready I’m ready for Clinton or Trump to make their appearance and save America. To my surprise what showed up instead was Pepe the Frog.
Shrugging I smacked Pepe as hard as I can and lost 10 points. Do not smack the Pepe, lesson learned. Immediately giving up I started to observe all the weapons in your disposal, them being a wiener, mallet, chicken, fish and other objects to wield. You can even duel wield if you are feeling particularly badass. Settling with the giant wiener I chucked in another coin and laid the smack down on Clinton & Trump as they emerged from the depths. Avoiding Dick Cheney and Pepe, I racked in 69 points as balloons were released in celebration. Satisfied with the results I got ready to exit and realized an awful truth.
There is no leaving that poll, none of what I did mattered, democracy is a lie! Panicked I starting waving my sausage (meat) out of the poll and into the empty room signaling for help to no avail. The only escape is to open the Steam Overlay and shut down the game, though it felt like I left my soul there in the process. So exactly like real voting I suppose. Moving on from me slowly going insane by playing whack-a-mole for an hour there is very little to this title. You are teleported before you can scribble anything on the form so you’re left with only the machine to mess around with. While the weapons are entertaining on a cosmetic level the hit detection is a tad off. The lack of rumble when you hit a target is disappointing so you have no feedback either. Whack-A-Vote used to be sold for a dollar but the devs took customer feedback to heart and made it into a free to play title, refunding all that paid for it. It is definitely worth a download for a couple minutes of fun as a small, free distraction.
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