Hello All! I'm totally stoked needless to say, with my site having acheived 32 members, I figured I'd post a review I've been waiting to do for about a month now, in case some of our older members are getting restless for some new reading material, and havent been looking at My Site.
Tropico, made by Pop Top Software, is based around a very cool concept (as all games I buy, I dont buy bad games with the exception of Star Trek ones, but thats all if your an Orc who hates those games). This game, is based on the principle that you, are the dictator of a carribean isle, and you rule of your people avoiding all sorts of political, natural, and social uprisings in your country of yeah, you guessed it, Tropico.
Now some of you will say, "But, Senor Presidente Chameleon! How can a game like this work?!" and the answer of course is very simple, its a twisted version of sim town. That meaning, your looking at things in a strategy-game format, while being able to manage how fast time passes. The controls are also pretty much the same as any strategy games, as you select where buildings will go, what 'upgrades' if you will, your buildings need, and what your relations with factions and other countries will be. The other thing thats great about the gameplay in Tropico - you can create your own Dictator character or choose from the obvious list of already existing ones, featuring such names as 'Evita Peron' and 'Fidel Castro'. The game also shows you how much memory useage its occupying (usually in the range of 23-30 MBs).
The sound in Tropico is, nothing less then fantastic. The background music is something to be said for alone, as it really struck me as far more unique then most games. The advisor who speaks to you in this game, can be very humorous at times as well as very serious, as in most strategy games now a days. Its quite frequent, however, to hear that 'The communist faction dissaproves of your low grade housing'. Just dont be telling them to try and run the country, they might take you too seriously.
The other sounds, ambience and such, are all adiquette for a game of this nature, I mean, its not like its hard to have the sounds of people walking, or the sound of a boat, or even that of some people Digging and Hammering.
The graphics in the game...are...not bad, but as I've found with other games like 'Sid Meier's Antietam!' that feature a zoom, you just cant use it, or everything looks slightly blurry and destorted. I've also found I cant use this game with my graphics card's direct 3d support...Which is odd, as I own an ATI All-In-Wonder Rage 128 Pro. Now, this is either one of two reasons, the game dislikes the res and color mode Im running in, or it just dislikes my computer and me. I cant settle for that.
Finally, you knew it was coming, these are the problems I have with this game. This games replayability is...well....you'll most likely shelf it for a few weeks after the first few times you play it, but I actually took it off the shelf two times so far to play it. The game is fun, it just doesnt move along as fast as some of us (or all of us) would like. Some other problems I have with this game, is its immense size on a hard drive. It takes 820 MB of space. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT TOOK FOR ME TO DELETE TO GET THAT MUCH?!
