Lyndon Johnson
Battlefield: Vietnam -- Johnson always appeared somewhat clueless about what was going in Vietnam. Perhaps this video game would have given him some idea of what he was sending U.S. soldiers into.
Vietnam 1965-75 -- Just like the conflict, this board game is long and intricate. The U.S. player must carefully commit the right amount of force without triggering a domestic backlash in America, all while fighting an enemy that comes back stronger no matter how many times he is destroyed.
Richard Nixon
Downtown: The Air War Over Hanoi 1965-72 -- A tactical board game that does much to explain why bombing North Vietnam proved so costly.
Paranoia -- A satirical role-playing game where players must survive in a futuristic city controlled by a malfunctioning computer that spies on its citizens and kills anyone it perceives as an enemy.
Jimmy Carter
Fortress America -- It is America's turn to suffer foreign occupation in this board game. Europe, South America, and China invade a feeble United States (perhaps governed by a president who thinks it's punishment for our sins).
Prince of Persia -- This adventure/time travel video game offers a more pleasant and less risky way for Carter to discover Iran.
Conquest of the Empire -- There is little Carter-esque about this board game about the Roman civil wars, except for the inflation rules that double or triple the costs of raising armies as the game progresses.
Ronald Reagan
Fallout 3 -- The player must leave the shelter of an underground city and roam a radioactive wasteland in this post-apocalyptic video game that shows what might have happened if Reagan's anti-Communist crusade had gone wrong.
Central America -- No more fooling around with the Contras. The United States can invade Nicaragua in this 1987 board game of conventional and guerrilla warfare in Central America.
Objective Moscow -- Maybe the Kremlin wasn't being paranoid? In this huge board game, the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese invade the Soviet Union to roll back the Evil Empire.
Missile Command -- The old video game based on Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, in which the defenders are eventually overwhelmed -- just as in real life.
George W. Bush
Labyrinth: The War on Terror -- The title of the game alone might have warned Bush of what he was getting into in this political-military board game in which the United States is always scrambling to put down terrorists and prop up friendly Arab regimes.
Battle for Baghdad -- Despite the title, this is a game of political negotiation in which various factions -- including the Americans, Sunnis, and Shia -- befriend and backstab each other to control the Iraqi capital.
Khyber Rifles: Britannia in Afghanistan -- This board game recreating the destruction of the 1842 British Afghan expedition and the British reprisal offensive is a reminder that Afghan wars have never been easy.
Barack Obama
SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs -- A video game that would give Obama a chance to take a gun's-eye view of the special operators who killed Osama Bin Laden.
NBA 2K13 -- Obama might like this basketball video game. Basketball is strategy, just like foreign policy. Also like foreign policy, the coach takes the blame when the team fumbles.
Chess -- An intellectual, somewhat passionless game. Mr. Spock liked chess.
Think of any more games that symbolize a president? Let us know!
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