Building a deserved and growing reputation for intelligent, home-grown software, Positech Games' latest once again challenges you to take control of a country (all fictional this time), sort out its problems and earn yourself re-election. And, as anyone who played the original Democracy can testify, that's some challenge.

For Democracy 2, though, Positech has made things that much harder, and thrown in more considerations. Among the introductions for Democracy 2 are a cabinet of ministers that you can hire and fire, and the effectiveness of the relevant minister will have a bearing on how quickly and effectively your policy decisions are applied.

Plus there's a very strict limit as to how much you can achieve in one game turn. Democracy 2 works by giving you a set amount of political capital per turn, and each policy decision comes with a price. Controversial decisions require you to have a lot of political capital, while easy decisions are less taxing.

The decisions you make cover, broadly, six areas: welfare, economy, law and order, foreign policy, public services and transport. Within each group are various decisions and policies that you can introduce, scrap or adjust, and each of these has an impact somewhere along the complex political ecosystem that underpins Democracy 2.

For instance, cut military funding and you end up putting off conservative voters, potentially leave yourself open to attack and may lose a government minister by way of resignation. Furthermore, push policies in one extreme direction and you become a potential target for assassination.

Most of Democracy 2's ramifications are beneath the surface and less obvious, though, and this is where the meat of the game really lies. Various problems pop up throughout your term of office, and the initial daunting main game screen - which is softened considerably by a good tutorial - helps pinpoint the contributory factors to each issue. The trick is then making a policy call that will resolve the problem, without triggering another problem, and without blowing the budget.

It's a game of taut budget management combined with savvy political nous, and it's a difficult one at that. You can choose from a variety of fictional nations to govern, and each comes with various problems and issues you'll need to concern yourselves with. Some of the nations, particularly the debt-ridden ones, prove to be very tricky to turn around, and given that the objective in every term of office is to be re-elected, you find yourself up against the clock far quicker than you'd like or hope.

Democracy 2 can be a little overwhelming in the first hour or two of playing, and equally unforgiving the more you play it. But it's engrossing, deeper than its precessor and offers customisation options that help lengthen its appeal. For the price Positech is asking, this is one of 2008's earliest bargains.

A sequel that expands on, and complicates a little (but for the right reasons), an already-fascinating political simulation. For the asking price, this really is a no-brainer.