Political Tycoon

by Take 2

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005JIUN
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: May 15, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,950 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Political Tycoon is a fast-paced strategy game in which you lead your country to world domination by building factories, harvesting natural resources, and exerting diplomatic and military force. Negotiate international trade deals, blackmail your enemies, and manipulate your way to power. Mold your country from the shadows and watch other nations crumble underneath your thumb.

Political Tycoon features eight different scenarios ranging from the arms race in the 1950s to a post-apocalyptic world in 2050. Enrich your country's economy by utilizing your resources. Send spies to undermine your rivals. Corrupt and blackmail your opponents. Monitor the political climate and win your people's trust. Run a country, its head of state, and its government. Threaten other world powers with nuclear war. Get extensive visual feedback and performance evaluation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very uptempo, May 14, 2001

By 

punkviper (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Political Tycoon (CD-ROM)

First off, the word Tycoon really needs to be put to rest as far as it relates to PC games. But on to the game, it isn't bad. You choose one of 8 different scenarios to play, choose a nation, pick a head-of-state, and set out to engage in trade, diplomacy, war, technology, and varous methods of interacting with the seven other nations all vying for global domination.

You have advisors with their own skill ratings, as well as diplomats assigned to the different nations. You can assign these diplomats to scurrilous underhanded objectives like sabotage, digging up scandals, and fostering uprisings. You handle production in your nation by building more production facilities for things like cattle, soy, perfume, shoes, and tomatoes. You trade these goods to the other nations, exporting what you have in excess and importing what you cannot make yourself.

Research also plays a part, as increasing it helps different facets of your abilities, like genetic engineering for increased cattle population growth, or weapons technology for your missile and anti-missile programs. As long as your people view you favorably (>50%) you will earn re-election. This can be manipulated with propaganda campaigns and tax reductions. Plus you can squirrel away your slush fund to pay your operatives abroad to carry out their dirty deeds (done dirt cheap!)

The pace of this game is very fast. Nations will be throwing trade offers at you by the second, as well as possible contracts for things like cooperative tech research or military alliances. Plus there are the global votes (much like the United Nations) that might result in sanctions, international aid, or even military intervention. Keeping up can be a taxing effort, as it all happens in real-time... no turn-based system here. The graphics are well-done and sufficiently cartoonish. The missions are fairly sparse at a scant 8 (and that 8 includes the online missions) but you can play each for several hours, and each mission can be tried using different countries with different objectives.

The coding is not perfect, as I was thrown out twice, as well as having some sound effects mysteriously disappear after a few minutes. But nothing that significantly hinders play. I thought a lot of the games inner workings could have used some further explanation than what is provided in the manual or the various tutorials. The whole time you play, you get the feeling there is more going on that what you are aware of. This isn't a game for the easily frustrated, as the multitude of tasks all occurring in real-time make for some frenzied gameplay, and often the path to victory isn't exactly crystal clear. But you will likely have fun trying, as I cannot think of a similar game ever released on PC.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but problems, October 25, 2001

By 

"garnoopy747" (Capron, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Political Tycoon (CD-ROM)

Ok, I've always wanted to run a government, so I got this game. I downloaded the tralier and it looked AWEASOME. THe game runs smoothly, no problems on my computer. The graphics are a bit child like but otherwise are very good.

There are only a few problesm that I had with the game. Ok, for starters there isn't a scenario for just playing a game without having to achieve a goal. You can't just run the government for fun and not have to be working for something.

Other than that this is an aweasome game.

Pros:
Good sound
Great scenarios

Cons:
Child Looking Graphics
No scenario wher eyou don't have to achieve something

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good for a few tries, April 4, 2002

By 

R. Lomas "zim3k" (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Political Tycoon (CD-ROM)

It starts with a good video, and it gets entertaining but it does have very poor graphics and poor game development. It is highly predictable once you catch up with the underlying assumption that the world cannot collaborate. You will play it for few tries and then forget about it. The music is extremely annoying. Buy it used if you must. I cannot sell it to you because I just threw it away judging that you may have better games to play than this one.