Review: Tropico 4

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The land of Tropico welcomes you back with open arms as the latest and greatest version of the game has been released on the PC.  Tropico is lush, beautiful island set in the Caribbean ready for a ruler to lead it into prosperity.  That ruler is you and you must build up your island and meet the needs of your citizens while avoiding revolutionaries and rival nations from usurping you.  It is a delicate balance managing all the aspects of your island nation but the journey has never been so enjoyable.

For those unfamiliar with the series Tropico is a city building simulation games at its very core.  As leader of this small nation it is up to you to listen to your subjects and fulfill their needs as they come up.  One day they could want more entertainment options and the next day they want you to control pollution.  You must be flexible and smart as you set the construction priority for all new projects because too much building will bankrupt your account quickly.  However, if you do not meet the needs of the people they will get upset and revolt or vote you out of office.  The game does a nice job of teaching you how to manage resources and generate enough income to satisfy the natives while adding money into your personal account for later.

The gameplay itself is reminiscent of Tropico 3 and those that played that game will have no problem jumping right into the action in Tropico 4.  However there are a number of things that you will notice right off the bat that make this a great game in and of itself.  First off you will notice that the graphics have been improved upon slightly but the color palate looks great and really compliments the smoothed out graphical look to the game.  New buildings have been thrown into the mix and they give you some variety on how to address problems your island faces.

You will also notice that Facebook and Twitter have been integrated into the game so you can share you Tropico 4 achievements to all your friends with a click of a button.   I especially enjoyed all the side objectives that are available while you are playing the game.  All of these objectives are optional but it gives you some direction when you are planning out your city.  The rewards for these optional objectives also helps get you out of economic and political jams when you extended yourself.  Returning players will notice that more factions have been added to the game and because of that political situations are more important than ever.  You will have to deal with their demands and offers to properly balance relations and the state of your own island.  Either way this system has been fleshed out and it works well.  The economic system has been tweeked allowing players to import items as well as export them.  This helps to keep your people happy if you have the cash to import the items you can’t produce yourself or allow you to focus your economy on finishing goods instead of harvesting raw materials.

As a whole Tropico 4 has more options and ways to complete goals than its predecessor does.  The game does a great job of showing you what to do and how to take advantage of all these new options you have available to you in the game and for that it is an excellent game.  The only negative thing that can be said of this game is that it is very similar to the last game as far as core gameplay is concerned.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since Tropico 3 was a great game and I feel there is enough added to this game that it can stand on its own despite the similarities.  Tropico 4 has a ton of replay value and with its broader political and economic system it should have no problem grabbing Tropico fans and keeping them playing for at least 40 hours or more.  All in all Tropico 4 is an excellent game and I would highly recommend this game for any gamer out there interested in city building since this game is one of the best.

Rating: ★★★★★★★★½☆ 

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