Customer Reviews

Tropico

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Tropico: Imagine a sim in which you play a 3rd world island dictator that places you in a large presidential palace where you govern the native inhabitants, immigrants who come to your country looking for work, tourists looking for that perfect beach vacation, political regimes wanting to be your friend, building an economic empire all while making sure you avoid a coup.

In an obvious tongue and cheek version of playing Fidel Castro governing Cuba from the early 50's to present day and beyond, I am totally amazed at the depth of your decision making progress. While the graphics are very strong, and the music soundtrack will have you humming for hours to a latin/salsa beat, you will want to play this game over and over (especially the random map generator and setting winning conditions) in figuring out the best way to manage your island. The game, at its most basic core, is modeled after a very sophisticated economic engine. Depending on what you pay your inhabitants at their jobs, the placement of certain money generating industries, the level of housing quality, what you can provide as entertainment, religion, schooling, healthcare is incredible. The placement of buildings on terrain, elevation, and proximity to other structures is very critical! Also staffing those buildings and making your people happy while also maintaining a good relationship with capitalists (USA) and communists (USSR) is just as important. You also have to be very wary about weather conditions and pollution. Again, you will be amazed at the level of depth this economic engine runs.

The characters are very amusing to watch, and their thoughts will help you make other decisions. But I guarantee you will always be questioning yourself. Was placing the church here a good idea, or should I have put the cabaret closer to the tourist area. Should I have planted coffee or corn on this plot of land, or should I start a timber industry and raise goats instead? Very serious. The most fun I had so far was quelling a coup where a few of my soldiers betrayed me (I guess they weren't to happy) and fled to the hills, only to come and try to storm my palace later. My loyalists then began a gun battle downtown sending the native and the tourists running.

There is not enough space in this review to tell you about all the myriad of building and characters available. But one really neat and realistic feature is the creation of your dictator. Before starting the game you need to set attributes to your character and depending on what you set people, industry, tourists, foreign powers will react differently. In addition, YOU MUST chose 2 faults, whether you are a womanizer, boozer, have tourits syndrome, compulsive gambler. etc....These also affect how the world reacts to you, so you will never play the same game twice!!

Okay, now the downsides: 1) The manual is vague in areas and you will want a better description on how things interact. 2) The manual has a few blatant errors. Pictures do not match text. 2) Some buildings, not all, cannot be rotated (this is truly unacceptable with today sims), 3) Your peoples explanations on how they are feeling are vague at times and there is no immediate feedback on decisions which can prove to be difficult for new players, and finally 4) There is already a patch 1.01 available for download at the main website POPTOP.com.

But don't let these few minor annoyances detract you this game. It has a great educational value and humor to it. The graphics and music are amazing, and the re-playability factor is high. Now bulldoze that shack, build an apartment building for the masses, grow some pineapple, and build that hotel on the beach!

Tropico. Some have heralded it as the best strategy game of the year, and some have even said ever. Better than Civilization some say. If you like The Sims or SimCity you will like Tropico. Why? You're an island dictator of a small Latin American island. You custom make your dictator, you pick traits (leftist author, biblical scholar, miner, there's over 30 of them), flaws (kleptomania, alcoholic, womanizer, over 30 of these too), rise to power (booze baron, communist rebellion, socialist election, coup, etc)and then start. You start off with a nice tropical island, about 30 populants, your palace, a couple of civic buildings, and a dock. Each citizen has their own political opinions, wants, needs, names, jobs, and desires. There can be up to 700 of them. There are six island political parties:

Communists- made up of the poor and the laborers, they want equal wage, collective housing, and to be well fed.

Capitalists- made up of bankers, buisinessmen, etc. They want security, upscale housing, low taxes, trade revenues, and tourism.

Intellectuals- made up of Professors, journalists, etc. They want libraries, schools, etc.

Envrionmentalists- they want to keep the environment sound

Religious- they want churches and church edicts

Military- want high pay and strong military

Along with that there are over 90 buildings, such as: rum distillieries, apartments, churches, spas, cabarets, resorts, restaurants, pubs, nightclubs, barracks, mess halls, etc. Each political party has a charismatic leader, and bad things can happen if they don't like you. On the bad side of the military? Watch out for a coup. On the bad side of the communists? Watch out for a revolt. On the bad side of the capitalists? Watch out for a slacking economy, etc. If you don't like a certain individual, you can always brand them a heretic, arrest them, deport them, bribe them, or assassinate them. It's all up to you.The graphics are nice and there's a strong economic system. Looks to be a great game, best of the year.

Imagine that you're the leader of a small South American country. Now you have to attract tourist, keep your citizens happy, set up industry, and help save the rain forest. That is the basis of Tropico. I liked Tropico because of its deepness and graphics. The game is much like an onion. It keeps adding layers to the basic core. For an example, each citizen has more than 50 characteristics, not to mention, a job and political convictions. Every person is different. The graphics are also top notch. The outstanding Railroad Tycoon 2 engine has been totaly redone. You see such details as clouds in the sky and people moving around. I recomend this game to any sim fan. I don't know if it will appeal to sports fans or not. Well, any way this game is a must get.

Tropico was a fun and enjoyable expirience for me. Basically this game is about a president(you) governing a small island nation.

Graphics- The graphics in this game are a bit 3 years ago, but still are great. There is some slowdown but not enough to ruin the expirience. Rating:8.8

Gameplay-Wonderful, its not like other sim managment games, heck, there are even politics and elections. Your goal is to last as presedent for a certain amount of years. Basically meaning don't loose an election, and well... don't get killed. Rating:10

Sound- The advisor can get annoying after a while, but the other sound is great. You hear boats docking at the dock, the power plant, and there's some relaxing carribean music in the backround.Rating:10

Overall- I enjoyed this game very much. It gave me a great fun and relaxing expirience. All I can say is, you will like it Overall:9.5

I see a lot of reviews here from people who expected another SimCity. This game is a lot closer to the Caesar series or Pharoah, or Majesty without the monsters. Your main challenge is keeping all your little island's different factions happy while maintaining a decent economy. This takes a lot of planning - new buildings take a long time to build, especially on a mountainous island, or if you try to branch out too much. One thing I found extremely difficult was judging the slope of the mountains - if you build on too steep an incline, the building times can triple, while your people begin to complain that they needed housing years ago. It can also be frustratingly hard to keep track of key people in the game, which is something you really need sometimes.

On the plus side, the graphics are stunning for a "non-accelerated" game, and the music is some of the best I've heard on a PC - it really reminds me of "the Buena Vista Social Club". The people of Tropico also have a surprisingly wide variety of personality traits. They aren't just little icons running around the map - they have extended families, and political motivations, and varying degrees of skill. The fact that you are required to take 2 character flaws for your avatar also contributes to the "personality" of the game, as the different flaws can really change the way the different factions respond to you.

One other thing really makes Tropico stand out in the crowd - NO BUGS! It's so nice to finally buy a game that doesn't require a patch the first time you play it, and never crashes or freezes. Too many developers these days release their games long before all the bugs are fixed, counting on the first buyers to work as a beta testing group and frustrating everybody. Tropico worked like a charm. You will, however, need a computer with a decent processor speed to handle the graphics, especially when you rotate the screen a lot.

Like most everyone else who has written a review, I was waiting anxiously for Tropico to be released. Railroad Tycoon II remains one of my favorite games & I thought it would be fascinating to see how the engine was transferred to a simulation such as this one. After having played the game quite a bit since it came out, my own verdict would be that it is an interesting attempt & there is some fun to be had, but that it does not measure up to what it could have been.

The origins of Tropico in the RRII engine are apparent: from the almanac that smacks down on your desktop at the end of each year to the little window on the bottom right that you can use to track individual people. The engine works just as well & is just as stable as it was in RRII. While it may be outmoded to some people, I like it & it serves to give Tropico a dose of familiarity.

My real problem with the game is twofold. First, as others have stated, the manual is not very helpful at all. This is a chronic problem in computer games but it is most hurtful in a game such as this in which obscure things sometimes happen for obscure reasons. In some of the games I played, I had a lot of trouble with my quality of life (pollution) rating. Checking the manual, I found that locating factories upwind of residences causes an increase in pollution & a decrease in quality of life. While in this case, the answer to the problem was in the documentation, in many many cases it isn't & it would take more gameplay than I'm willing to devote to anything to dredge it out.

My other problem was the difficulty in getting useful information out of the almanac & other "information" features. Trying to figure out whom to bribe or arrest can involve click after click--& if you want to bribe several members of a faction, you'll have to go through the routine each time. There does not seem to be anything equivalent to the screens in Caesar III or Pharaoh to let you figure out what's going wrong or going right.

On a couple of complaints others have had: my computer is a PII 350 & I have had very few problems running this game at all. My only difficulty has been rotating the map at high zoom which goes very slowly. The game can also get a little jumpy later in scenarios when a lot is going on. But I would say the ability of the game to run on my 2+ year old computer is a selling point.

And on building airports, I have built them in as little as 5 or 6 years or less. The most important thing to doing so is finding a *flat* piece of ground on which to place it. If you don't, the construction guys will spend years levelling off the area before construction can even begin. On some islands, you may not be able to build an airport at all since there may not be a suitable place for it. Also, make sure there are plenty of construction guys--you can never go wrong putting up another one of those construction buildings if building on your island seems to lag. And in any event, you can win the game without an airport.

In short, Tropico is worth a spin on your CD drive but it most likely won't last as long on my hard drive as Railroad Tycoon II or Caesar III have.

If you compare the first week that you own Tropico with any other game, it rates high. A creative portrayal of your typical island dictatorship, not many software companies make a strategy/planning game that is also mixed with fun gameplay. (An example is your presidential advisor congratulating you when you have accumulated a large bank account in Switzerland.)

The problem with Tropico is that the game quickly becomes boring. When rating a game, no matter how astounded I am at first with the creative gaming concept, impressive graphics, etc. - I feel there are many PC games that just aren't worth the price that we as consumers pays when you consider how limited the time is that the game remains interesting.

The game adapts some elements of Sim City with more emphasis on political strategy. This in itself gives the game a unique appeal because not many strategy games give the user an opportunity to have a free-hand with the imaginary nation's politics. Another difference between this and Sim City (besides the fact that it is more of a South American island culture) is that because of your island's limited size Tropico is more animated and detailed. You can track the residents of your city as they make their daily rounds and look at their family, living conditions, politics, etc.

If you're a gamer that enjoys planning games (Something in the mold of Sim City, Rollercoaster Tycoon and/or Railroad Tycoon.) you'll definitely be more inclined to enjoy this game. While I am a fan of these types of games I felt that Tropico didn't offer enough variety to make it last long. The scenarios included are slightly interesting but Sim City 3000 is a game in the same genre that is more entertaining. There is a downloadable demo available on the internet. I would suggest you give the demo a try before purchasing the software and keep in mind that the format of the demo is the same as the full game with the exception that they have not allowed a few buildings type to be completed in the demo.

Tropico is an incredibly intriguing, all-around great game. I pre-ordered Tropico at the same time as I got the Diablo II expansion pack. When Tropico finally came, I installed it and haven't gone back to Diablo II yet.

You start the game by taking control of an island in the Caribbean Sea as "El Presidente" in 1950. Either starting from scratch or choosing a pre-built scenario like in Sim City, you build it up with apartments and tenements, farms and mines, and about 50 other buildings. At the same time, you have to try and appease the communist and capitalist factions on the island, as well as 4 others. If you don't, protesters and rebels might pop up, and U.S. gunboats could even threaten an invasion. Or, you could simply lose the next election, unless, of course, you "re-interpret the ballots".

Tropico has a fairly large learning curve, but there's a good tutorial, the first one in a game I've liked, and an advisor will give you tips as the game progresses. You can just go in and mess around, or look at incredibly detailed charts and check out each individual named character with specific traits and feelings as you become more comfortable with the game. Also, there is no instant gratification for getting money; if you build a farm, for example, you don't get paid until the planted crops grow, are harvested, and carried to the dock. This involves a lot of strategy, and you might spend a year or two in the hole until the tobacco gets sold, and you pop up to $30,000 immediately. The music is also perfect, a great island mix that really sets the mood.

Unfortunately, I can only give it 4 stars, because there are some fairly important things that need to be fixed in a patch. Buildings can't be rotated, bulldozing things isn't instantaneous, I haven't found a way to delete saved games in the program, and a couple other aspects detract from the game. However, they don't cause any major problems, and Tropico remains one of my favorite games that will probably keep me occupied all the way until Civ 3 comes out. Definitely pick this game up, it's well worth your time and money.

Civilization ruined it for all of us. The breadth, width and complexity of the Civilization series has yet to be matched in a strategy game. So maybe I'll never give another strategy game five stars because Civ spoiled me. Tropico, though, comes close as you can get.

The interface will look familiar to fans of Railroad Tycoon II, so much so that it's kinda creepy. Half the time I started hearing train whistles and banjo music. But the comparisons end there. Tropico puts you on an island as dictator to reek as much or as little havoc as possible. The basics are all here for you to provide: food, shelter, trade, military; but the micromanagement is almost nil. Your computerized peons do the work for you! Your job is to set wages, rent and build, build, build. One of the best things about Tropico is (like the only good part of Black and White) it doesn't make value judgements based on whether you're capitalist or communist, intellectual or religious, etc. It just passes judgement on whether you're a good one or not.

The down side is the lack of military involvement, unless you decide to be a complete jerk to your constituents. Also, the maximum reign for score-keeping is 70 years (although you can continue on or start in sandbox mode and just build), and there are no scientific or industrial improvements during that time. In other words, the buildings you can build at the beginning are it.

Bottomline, Tropico is a good game well worth the initial price, but it's no Civilization!

I hesitated on buying Tropico for several weeks, since I felt I was badly burned by my last game purchase, Black and White. Now, I wish I hadn't hesitated. Tropico is a really fun game that is both reasonably intuitive (at least at the basic level) and extremely fun. The graphics are beautiful and your sychophantic aide adds just the right amount of dry humor. (For instance, if you click on a dying citizen, he will say something like "Adios, muchachos." and if you get ousted from your island "I guess the people just don't recognize your genius, El Presidente." If you read your citizens minds like the good faschist dictator you are, they will think of things like "What this island really needs is a good train simulator.", which is a reference to PopTop's last hit Railroad Tycoon II.) Anyway, the game has charm. There are some minor quirks (i.e. even with the patch the airport takes forever to build. By the time you are ready for it it is probably too late to start building it. Also, some buildings can't be rotated and it would be nice to be able to name the various regions of the island yourself.) But overall it is a very fun and addictive game. If you think you might like this game you probably will. I fully anticpate that it will carry me through till Civ 3 is released.