Politics isn’t the easiest sell to the videogames market but Wideload, never your average game developer, has created a genuinely funny title.

Hail to the Chimp for PS3 and Xbox 360 is subtitled ‘The Presidential Party Game,’ but it doesn’t really sit too well in the party genre: it’s more of an arena game with variants. Each round has four presidential candidates facing off in a small level and bashing each other around while scrambling for the clams that populate each environment: these, in turn, are used to fulfil various criteria that win that round of the primary.

There’s a dividing line here: HTTC is one of those games that works very well with friends, but feels a little insipid played solo. Teaming up to unleash an unstoppable attack against the leader, knocking a friend’s clams out of their hands just as they reach the ballot box, nudging someone over the edge of a cliff – it livens up no end in multiplayer, which can be conducted locally as well as online.

There is a reason to play through the singleplayer campaign, however: unlocking all of the GRR News Network footage, spoof adverts and lame attack adverts that provide a wonderfully concepted and executed context to the ongoing knockabout fun.

In tandem with the bright and clean visual style, HTTC’s easy relationship with the subject matter results in some of the finest political animals you’ll see and, what is perhaps even more remarkable, a videogame that is genuinely funny. Don’t misunderestimate it.

Verdict: 7/10