You are on the beta version of My Abandonware. The live site is still myabandonware.com. Your favorites and ratings here are copied to the live site. Comments and other changes are not — we delete them every morning at 08:00 Paris time, when this site goes down for about an hour. Leave feedback through this link to Pastel (email required).

Search more than 30000 retro games
/ Genres / Strategy / Shadow President

Shadow President

DOS - 1993

Shadow President allows you to become the president of the USA, starting June 1, 1990, in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Eastern European countries are getting independent, and Saddam Hussein is not the number 1 enemy of the US.

The game is very well documented, every country is presented with very good data and you can get a pretty accurate state of geopolitics of 1990. Shadow President is a captivating game if you manage to get into it. You have to put lots of efforts to make your strategies work. This can get quite frustrating, and that's the main weakness of the game: it's such a precise simulation it can get pretty annoying to play. A great game for geopolitics nerds!

Comments and reviews

ZR 06 Jul. 2026

Shadow President is now being sold on Steam! They did a similar "fix" with the airstrike animation by replacing the sound effect with another one in the game.

0
Joe 17 Mar. 2026

launch game
immediately launch entire nuclear stockpile at Israel
close game

5
Ralf 24 Nov. 2024

Regarding the Surgical Strike Crash case, try PCem. In my experience, this often works wonders. However, PCem requires deeper DOS knowledge.

2
NOBODY 06 Feb. 2021

Great game, but found a glitch, the same as someone before posted, when I go for a surgical strike, the animation crashes the game and smears the blue from the sky down the screen, tried a few graphical settings, one crashes dosbox entirely. Don't know the cause, tried the "legit" version and the "cracked" version, same result. Help would be greatly appreciated, please and thank you.

2
joey 14 Jan. 2021
Top comment

bye bye norway

13
jono 24 Nov. 2020

Surgical strikes crash the game!

3
I.M Meen 01 Feb. 2020

It's been two years, can we try to make it work in the browser?

0
admin 29 Oct. 2018
Admin

Can't launch the game in browser alas

0
DaSovietPotato 26 Oct. 2018

Norway, NO WAY!

3
someone 18 Oct. 2018

add the ability to play in browser please

2
The Pardoner 02 Aug. 2018

Oh and I forgot to mention, my press secretary lady resigned, my secretary of something or another died, and my secretary of defense left. All in all pretty accurate to what would happen if I was president.

4
The Pardoner 02 Aug. 2018

Oh goodness this game is too good. Started first game by sending the entire US's nuclear arsenal to Poland, and then lost 190,000 troops to them. After that I demanded their surrender. Got assassinated after losing a war with Greenland. Oh and I tried to assassinate the USSR's leader and failed.

3
Norway 29 Jul. 2018

Was nuked 0/10 would not get nuked again

3
Soviet Soldier 17 Jun. 2018

my presidency saw me nuke the Soviet Union on the first day of my run, quickly followed by mass radation clouds and full on war, only in this can you see France ally the Soviet Union to gang up on you as the US. over all rating 17/10

0
Guy 30 Jan. 2018

You CAN take over the entire planet. The devil is in the spending.

0
Vinesauce Joel 04 Dec. 2017
Top comment

it was a joke, lighten up Norway

24
PJ 26 Sep. 2016

I used to have this. Where's the fun if you can't successfully invade the world though?

0
Reyce 01 Aug. 2016

*REVIEW*

My time as president was relatively pleasant and I would probably label my career as a resounding success story, shoeing how the world can unite in times of need. Though this type of game has been surpassed by more detailed titles there is some charm to be found in the high level scale on display. I just hope you like some hideous menu displays.

Full Review:
http://cooldownpodcast.com/reviews/reyces-retro-reviews/shadow-president-reyces-retro-review/

0
ScrimmyBingus 21 Apr. 2016
Top comment

NORWAY
NEVER
SAW
IT
COMING

33
V. Oxley 09 Mar. 2016

I had this problem where whenever I tried to preform a surgical strick the game would run a garbled version of the animation and then freeze. So if this happens to you just turn animations off in the options. Very good game. Very good in that it's the kind of game your get stories from. My friends who're put off by the gameplay which they could get into because they are facsinated by what plays out. I find it interesting that you or another nation cannot actually start a tradional nuclear holocaust. What happens is a brief nuclear exchange, followed by the intiator (best to not even retaliate, honestly) being deposed, assassinated, or devestated by the international community. So at least in Shadow President the world survives WW3. And only in SP will you get China, Japan, and weirdly: France (France has a surpising nuclear trigger finger in all my games) ganging up on the Soviet Union.

2
tester 24 Nov. 2015

whenever I invade a country I always get impeached

2
brodan2001 25 Sep. 2015

great game even today with upgraded graphics and slightly modernized inter-phase would buy it on steam.

1
ThatGuy 01 Aug. 2015

1. Nuke Everyone.
2. That's it.

2
larkin1843 12 Jul. 2015

every time i try to play shadow.exe, it always says its not compatible with windows :(

-2
admin 09 Feb. 2015
Admin

Added a presintalled and cracked version of the game, run it instantly!

0
Kuurus 14 Aug. 2014

Can't get it to work on Win 7. :'( Forgot about this game until earlier today and decided to hunt it down...anyone know how I can get it to work?

-5
TheRooseLoose 11 May. 2014

Guest right? Guessed wrong.

1
shit doesn't work 06 Feb. 2014

on mac

-3
Hans 15 Sep. 2013

Excellent game. Nuclear war has never been this much fun.

4
Peter 09 Aug. 2013

I played this game for a long long time. It took me roughly 76 years to take over the entire planet.

1
Eric 31 Jan. 2012

This is my favorite game of all time, the best of the best!

1

No comment nor review for this game at the moment.

Comments posted on the beta are not kept. We delete them at 08:00 Paris time and they never reach the live site. Post on myabandonware.com if you want your comment to stay.

Downloads

DOS version
Disk setup version
United Kingdom English
3 MB
Pre installed and cracked
United Kingdom English
3 MB

Extras

Manual Manual 1
Extra file
DOS 2 MB English English

Similar games

CyberJudas
4.1/5 - 44 votes
CyberJudas
DOS
1996
Conflict
4.4/5 - 67 votes
Conflict
DOS, Amiga
1990
Sid Meier's Civilization
4.5/5 - 1441 votes
Sid Meier's Civilization
DOS, Windows 3.x, Mac, SEGA Saturn, Amiga, Atari ST
1991
Balance of Power
4.6/5 - 61 votes
Balance of Power
DOS, Amiga, MSX, Atari ST, Apple II, PC-88, PC-98
1986
Oregon Trail Deluxe
4.2/5 - 1668 votes
Oregon Trail Deluxe
DOS
1992
Hidden Agenda
4.4/5 - 55 votes
Hidden Agenda
DOS, Mac
1989