Review: Tropico 3

Tropico 3 is a return to the glory days of the original Tropico 8 years ago in which people got to play an awesome dictator to a small island. The sequel, Tropico: Pirate Cove in 2003 was a failure in the eyes of fans so Kalypso Entertainment has to not only fight an uphill battle in bringing back what was great about Tropico, but also topping that in order to emerge victorious in this new generation.

So does it? Let's find out.

For those who have never heard of Tropico before, it's like Sim City, except on a smaller scale. And a lot less cold, a lot more sunny, and tongue firmly placed in cheek. You are tasked with bringing a small island to fruition with economy, trade, and tourism. The period is 1950s onwards so the US and USSR will both be bearing gifts at your doorstep in order to influence you to their side. You can pretty much remain free from either of their clutches, or succumb to the temptations of either ideology, which will have an effect on the development of your country-island. All the whilst, you've got to keep your own people happy and riot-free, either through morally upright means, or unscrupulous activities such as assassination and election-rigging.


Which brings me to the important element: gameplay. City-management is pretty much the crux of the game, and Tropico 3 does this well. The island's geography creatively limits the expansion of your city, forcing you to decide what would be important to build where. Stuff built needs to be important to the running of the city because superfluous structures have upkeeps that will eat you into financial ruin. Which means the challenge in Tropico 3 is all about balancing the numbers.

I found that at the start of every game or new island, money is always going to be an issue. You will run close to debt in order to build the stuff, and hope for the best in your money-making farms and factories, or wait for gifts from the superpowers. But slowly, you learn what makes the best money fastest, and what buildings would help, and slowly you will snowball into becoming a great businessman-cum-politician.

There is an interesting personal element to the game in the form of avatar-creation. You get to build your politician from scratch or choose one of a multitude of famed leaders from Evita Perone to Che himself. But I recommend customizing your own because of all the fun options you can choose, from your educational background to how you came to power. Traits and flaws too, all of which will have an effect on how your city running will turn out.


Don't fret, if you don't like numbers all that much. Tropico 3 does well to hide them if you don't want to see them, and just get on with building blocks. It's very accessible in that way, and there are advisers and reminders on hand to make sure you know what you are doing. In that sense, there is enough hand-holding, but still will leave the city to your disposal if you want to do deeper level management that will bring your city and your personal coffers to great heights.

Probably the most challenging aspect of the game is in keeping the citizens and factions happy. They always seem to have one gripe or other, whether it be in wanting you to build them an expensive church or not giving them enough jobs or healthcare, etc. It makes you wonder how all the good world leaders like Thatcher and Obama and Lee Kuan Yew don't just throw in the towel and gun down and jail up all the dissenters. It just seems so easy, and this game gives you the option to go either way. You can give speeches, enact policies, or have your secret police deal with the rebels. All good fun and balances well between the large scale machinations of city-building, and smaller scale poking here and there.

One glaring issue with gameplay that I found is that once you get over the initial hurdle of figuring out what is best to build when, and how to efficiently manage your people and money, the game becomes retardedly easy. Once you've got so much money that you are just building buildings just for the sake of spending it, there is nothing more to the game. An occasional disaster or random event will throw you off balance for a minute, but you get back on your feet and then just wait some more. Or quit. Which is why I recommend newcomers to start playing the game through the missions, which give direction to the city-management because once you've succeeded in developing your nation in sandbox mode, what is the point?


But let's move on, to graphics. This is probably the best thing about the game hands-down. Everything is so shiny, colorful, and pops with life. The sun shines and the water glistens. The vibrancy works well with the theme of island-life, and you can zoom down to ground level and see the detailing of the individual citizens and buildings. The AI citizens do really have a life of their own and have things to do at different times of the day. It's all rather believable and immerses you further in your role as leader of your island. I just wished like in Rollercoaster Tycoon that they would implement a feature that lets you roam about the city as a citizen, first-person style. That would be an awesome icing on the cake. But as it is, the graphics is top-notch.

Sound is decent, they've got the whole Latin-America vibe going with the Latino tracks but honestly, with a time-consuming game like Tropico 3, after awhile, the repeated guitars and caster-nets start to grate. They've also got a strange, overly-enthusiastic radio DJ who either praises or criticizes you based on the actions you make in the city, and sometimes he just makes some really random statements. Overall, he's funny enough to have stick around and not press the mute button on.

In conclusion, Tropico 3 is a great game to get into whether you're a first-time gamer of the city-management genre, or a veteran. There's enough depth to keep you hooked for hours. I especially like how it differentiates from the metropolitan style of Sim City, with the sunny beaches and lush forests of small islands. It really does make you feel like you're on summer vacation on a paradise island. A paradise island that lets you call all the shots.