Tropico 3 Review: Heading To The Islands

Written by MarkyX | November 11, 2009

Tropico 3

The city building genres has grown a bit stale. The settings for those kinds of games usually fall into two categories: A medieval period where the rules of logic don’t apply, or a modern era where you always have to deal with residential, commercial, or industrial areas. The “Tropico” series of city building games takes place in the Caribbean during the 1950s, where you’re starting population starts at less than 100, getting paid five bucks a month is the norm, and juggling between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. is essential to your island’s survival. “Tropico 3″ keeps most of the roots from the original “Tropico,” only improving on the basics, as well as adding small new features to this single player game. With all these improvements, is “Tropico 3″ an island worth visiting or should you vacation elsewhere?

“Tropico” doesn’t have much of a central plot; the game throws you into a “campaign” mode where you pick from fifteen islands to start your game. Each scenario isn’t connected to one another, so expect oddball scenarios such as being a cloned spy with a transmitter in your bum, to having to escape your evil twin brother to start a new life. If you are looking for intellectual writing that changes your perception of the Caribbean islands and its politics, you won’t find it here, instead you will find clever parodies and completely random humor, as well as ways to improve (or emotionally scar) your subjects.

Tropico 3

Tending to your subjects is what “Tropico” is all about. Unlike games like “SimCity” or “Dawn of Discovery,” each citizen in “Tropico” has their own skills, goals, ambitions, and political affliction. Since these citizens have somewhat the same political beliefs, they are categorized into factions. What this means is you need to perform actions and get the right buildings to appease them. For example, Communists like good housing, Capitalists like to have a good economy and employment, while the Religious faction wants plenty of churches. As time goes by, these factions will start demanding more from you, so you might need to start saving up for that Cathedral when the Religious folk ask for it.

That’s essentially what the game boils down to; you have a group of people that want to be satisfied and you do this by creating the appropriate buildings and issuing the right edicts. What makes the game challenging is you don’t have enough funds to do everything, so it’s very hard to keep everyone happy at once. You will need to make decisions such as “Do I need to build more places for my citizens to work so I can get the money now, or should I build a high school and get them educated for better careers in the future and appease the Intellectuals? Should I issue a literacy program once the high school is built? Will the foreign aid be enough to even supply those high paying jobs? Are the Intellectuals even worth satisfying?”

Tropico 3

It’s tough branching decisions like this that makes “Tropico” really stand out as a city building game. It’s a game where you can’t slack off because the citizens will be after you for being idle yet you will never question the logic since it works so well. Whether you win or lose, you’ll exactly know why, and this is a sign of a game with great design.

Although this is a great game, it isn’t the most easy to jump into. While there is an interface tutorial and the first few campaign scenarios teach you the basic concepts, it doesn’t exactly tell you how to be effective. It won’t tell you how to properly layout a city, or how tourism ratings are affected, and because of that most of the time you’ll be dealing with loads of guesswork and experimenting.

The other problem is the terrain of the islands themselves are extremely restrictive. You aren’t given much an option to flatten the land for your buildings so even though you have this great looking island, there are many areas that are simply off limits for your buildings or any sort of development. The other problem is the roads themselves aren’t flexible, sometimes forcing you to demolish buildings for the first time since although the roads look like they will work, the game simply refuses to place them.

Tropico 3

That being said, they are simply minor kinks in this otherwise beautiful game. It is one of the best looking city games out there, and everything from how your customizable personal dictator looks to the very interface itself gives that whole “South American Dictator” vibe to it. Combine the art style with the “TnT Radio” blaring Latin music and you have one of the most well-presented games in the market.

If you’re a fan of city building games, this is a must purchase. It is one of the best looking games in the genre with a unique theme that almost anyone can understand. With its logical mechanics, dynamic citizen system, and politically incorrect writing, this is definitely an island worth visiting.

Rating:

“Tropico 3″ was developed by Haemimont and published by Kalypso for the PC and Xbox 360 on October 20, 2009. This review is based on the PC version of the game.