Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Tropico 3

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PC
3. Publisher: Kalypso
4. Developer: Haemimont
5. Release Date: 10/16/09
6. Genre: Sim

by Tim Wilson

Back in 2001, PopTop Software put out a great little economic and political management title called Tropico. Tropico was a satirical simulation of operating your own banana republic – complete with all the corruption, fraud, and ruthless totalitarianism it involved. The game was well-received by critics and is still considered a minor classic among strategy fans. The game spawned several expansions and a slightly less popular sequel, Tropico 2: Pirate Cove. Pirate Cove, as the name implies, allowed gamers to run their island as a pirate king.

Haemimont is the the third developer to tackle the series in as many games, and bills Tropico 3 as a “true sequel” to the original Tropico. Shaking off the buccaneer trappings of the previous title, Tropico 3 returns to the island setting of the first game, albeit with a huge graphical makeover. As a fan of the previous two titles, I was curious as to whether Tropico 3 truly added more to the original title, or was simply a fresh coat of paint on an old game.

The first thing that was immediately evident is that it had been a long time since I played the original Tropico, and my dictator skills had grown a little rusty. Jumping head-first into the first scenario proved a little overwhelming, so I decided to check out the game’s tutorial. Unfortunately the tutorial seemed to be more camera practice than actually teaching fundamentals of the game, so I came away knowing very little. Aside from camera movement the game does teach some rudimentary basics of the interface, construction, and giving speeches, but doesn’t do a good job explaining why these things need to be done.  The game does come with a thick (by modern standards) manual which does a great job of explaining the various buildings you can construct and edicts you can issue, but figuring out how those pieces interact requires playing scenarios and learning through trial-and-error. Players with a good in-depth knowledge of Tropico or similar management games may find it a bit easier to get started right away. All others should be prepared for a fairly steep learning curve.

Tropico 3 contains three modes of play – campaign, challenges, and sandbox. The campaign consists of 15 missions which guide the player through steadily tougher scenarios. These scenarios require the player to fulfill one or more objectives within a certain time limit while managing to remain in power. Don’t let the time limit scare you – time in Tropico 3 is measured in years, and moves slowly enough that you’ll have ample time to accomplish your goals. One nice feature is that the scenarios are not strictly linear. Completing one will allow you to choose from several others, thus providing some variety should you get stuck on one particular mission. The challenges mode incorporates an online component in which players create scenarios and submit them for other players to attempt. Completing these challenges allows you to post high scores to compare with other players for bragging rights. Finally, the sandbox mode gives you the freedom to enjoy building your island paradise without worrying about objectives or time limits.

The best way to learn Tropico 3 is to just jump in and play. The game starts off gently, requiring you only to produce a specified number of exported goods. While you can certainly focus on that single objective by plopping down a couple of farms and waiting, you’re far better served by taking advantage of the game’s gentle hints. During the course of play your advisor will occasionally pass along helpful tips that you can act upon or simply ignore. For instance, if you are losing support from the religious population on your island, your advisor may suggest building a church. Accessing the build menu will also pop up the game’s suggestion for what you should build next. You can choose to disable such tips, but early on when you are learning the game you’ll probably find them invaluable. By taking recommendations from the game, I quickly began to understand the complex relationships at work underneath the simple “economic sim” surface.

One thing that Tropico 3 adds to the original premise is a deeper political simulation overlaying the economic one. When starting the game you can choose to be an actual historical personality such as Fidel Castro or Che Guevara, one of the game’s make-believe leaders, or customize your own. Each personality has their own strengths and weaknesses which will impact gameplay – ranging from realistic perks such as being able to give great speeches, to more comical ones such as flatulence, which impacts your foreign relation ability. Creating a custom avatar will let you choose your own traits, as well as personalize your leader’s look and style.

When starting a typical scenario you will be given a certain number of pre-built structures and roads, and are then set free to accomplish the scenario’s goals in a manner of your choosing. After a few minutes of gameplay, you’ll begin to realize the complex web of relationships among the populace, its infrastructure, and your leader. For instance, growing and exporting food requires farms. Farms require workers, so you must be able to set competitive wages to lure workers in. Once they have a job, these workers need a place to live. Shanties are cheap accommodations, but they are eyesores to the tourist population and boost crime rates. Build a bunch of expensive apartments, however, and your minimum wage farmers won’t be able to afford rent and will construct shacks anywhere they can find a place to settle down. You’ll also need to make sure there are garages and roads (a new addition to the Tropico series) to get your workers to their jobs and your goods to the docks for export.

While you’re juggling the economics, you’ll also need to worry about your people. Your country can’t run on minimum wage jobs alone, so you’ll need to build an educational infrastructure to produce high school and college graduates. Without schooling, you’ll need to rely on immigration to pull talent in, which may upset your island’s natives. So what if they’re upset? Well, your job is on the line! An unhappy populace can quickly move from a peaceful protest to a military coup, so it’s a good idea to keep them in line. Whether you do this by catering to their every whim or ruling with a cruel iron fist is completely up to you. The interrelationship of all these various factors is the key to what makes Tropico 3 so fun. You’re in a constant balancing act where every decision will impact something else, yet have total freedom to experiment and discover what works best.

While all this sounds like a great deal to manage, Tropico 3 provides a fairly intuitive interface to keep things straight. You can quickly look at your populace’s needs via an “almanac.” The almanac provides a helpful summary of relevant statistics on the left with more detailed information on the right. The almanac is a great place to go for the big picture items, including your people, economic, political, and game score information. Aside from the almanac you also get an interface at the bottom which will pop up when selecting individual buildings or constructing new buildings. In this interface you can set build priority levels, look at numbers of workers and fire some if necessary, or set rents and wages. The system works pretty well, and while individual features took some trial and error to figure out, it didn’t take long to learn where to go for the information I wanted at any particular time.

Tropico 3 also boasts some graphical overlays to help you make sense of your island. By toggling various overlays you can get a color-coded view of your island’s crop conditions, natural resources, crime rates, pollution, services, and economy. Icons over individual structures also give at-a-glance information, including whether or not a structure has enough workers or is profitable.

Speaking of graphics, Tropico 3 raises the bar for graphics in an economic management sim. The game is now fully three-dimensional, allowing you to zoom in on individual citizens or rotate buildings and the map for optimum placement. While the game’s palette of greens and browns isn’t particularly colorful, the detail of individual trees and structures is outstanding for a game of this type. Tropico 3 aimed for a slightly more realistic feel than most games of this type, which means you’ll feel like you’re actually managing an actual island rather than a cartoon fantasy world. This eye candy does come at a price – minimum video card requirements are a 256MB GeForce 6600, but you’ll want something better than that to really appreciate the visuals.

The audio is also excellent, featuring a Latin soundtrack that will instantly make you feel like you’re part of the culture. Brass instruments and cheerful upbeat rhythms set the tone, and will keep you humming long after you’ve quit the game. Obviously any sort of music can start to grate after extended play, and this game is no exception – but there’s no denying the fantastic effort involved in creating this soundtrack to provide just the right atmosphere. The voice acting is also terrific. Occasionally the soundtrack will be interrupted by an announcer relaying a news story of interest.  These stories generally reflect what is going on in the game environment and can provide helpful hints or clues to potential problems. Combined with the terrific music, it’s hard not to picture yourself as a cigar-chomping presidente sitting on your balcony listening to government-sponsored radio.

As fun as Tropico 3 is, there are some flaws that keep it from becoming a perfect game. First  among these is the aforementioned learning curve. I was fortunate to have some previous Tropico experience under my belt, but newcomers may find it difficult to fully understand the underlying concepts of the game until they’ve played awhile. The in-game tips and interface elements certainly go a long way in allowing players to feel their way through their first few missions, but a more thorough tutorial or more strategy-focused manual would certainly have been welcome.

A second nitpick is a result of the new three-dimensional environment. Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out where you can and can’t place buildings. The game does give you the familiar red/green signals for whether a building can be placed, but the map itself offers few clues as to what is buildable land and what isn’t. Not a huge problem, but one that can cause potential frustration when a building can’t be placed in that “perfect” spot you had your eye on.

The final minor complaint is the extremely slow pace of the game. Buildings construct at an absolute snail’s pace, so you may find yourself virtually twiddling your thumbs quite often. The game does offer an easy way to accelerate time – both a fast and a very fast speed. However, even these can sometimes be too sluggish. I found myself playing on the fastest speed for the vast majority of my scenarios, only occasionally slowing things down – the exact opposite of what the developers probably intended. New players will of course benefit from this slower pace, especially as they learn the ropes, but veterans will probably wish for a way to accelerate things even further.

Despite these complaints, Tropico 3 is a terrific game that will appeal to anyone looking for an intricate management sim. The various interactions and events that you can experience during the course of the game are too numerous to mention here. Suffice it to say, the more you play the more in-depth and rewarding the game becomes. The presentation is top-notch for a game of this genre, with beautiful visuals bringing your island to life and a rollicking score to keep your ears happy. There is some question as to how popular the online challenges will be – it’s a nice feature, but don’t base your buying decision on them. Instead, enjoy the game for the moderately lengthy campaign and the ability to jump into sandbox mode. With the game available from retailers now for $10-$15 less than most newer releases, it’s definitely a great way to unleash your inner dictator.

Gaming Trend Score

86

1. Graphics: 85
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 80
4. Gameplay: 87
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:86