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Your Private Banana Republic

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 26 / 28
Date: May 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I played Tropico this past weekend at a friend's house. I was amazed at the depth and the complexity of the game's mechanisms. First of all, the computer resource requirements are quite steep. It took 820 MB of my friend's hard drive. I imagine the Mac version will be just as high.

The game creates a small island nation for you to rule. The complexity of the detail is extraordinary. An entire soil and climatic system is calculated for your island, determining its arability.

Tropico is fun to play, but has a steep learning curve. It seems you never have enough construction workers, and the amount of detail the game provides makes it difficult to assimilate into the basic question of "how am I doing?" It's hard to judge when you should call a new election, build a new building, etc. Part of that problem comes from the manual, which gives some witty comments, and narrative description of the parts of the game, but little specifics to judge how much is enough, and when you need to more or less. This is probably to encourage you to pay an additional..(price)..to get the "strategy guide", which includes the stuff which should have been in the original manual!

The island graphics are beautiful. The music is fantastic and really sets the mood of the game. Since they use MP3s, I plan to use some of the music in my Sims jukebox.

While the game is tough to master, it is fun and deep. If you can get over the steep learning curve, you will really think that you are governing a small island, without the mosquitoes.

Amazing Graphics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've played this game twice so I'm clearly far from mastering this game, but I read a lot about it before I purchased it. I'd recommend anyone interested do the same thing (the top pop website has TONS of great info.) This game is perfect for those with multi-tasking skills, but will most likely overwhelm those under a certain age. After a successful game last night feel like bragging to people on the street: "I was re-elected 5 times and after all these years my people still love me!" There's a lot of information to read through- as I'm still new with the game it feels like TOO much, but I'm sure it'll be more useful later. The "Almanac" has a thousand lists and cross-references and charts and.... I just can't figure yet how all of it can useful. The graphics are beautiful and the detail is amazing. As the previous reviewer mentioned, however, once you go through the tutorial and "quick guide" the rest of the manual doesn't help as much as you'd hope (though it is very witty). I'm still in the trial-and-error stage of the game but I can see how it will keep me entertained for hours. Obession isn't that far off. When I start thinking about my Tropican people while I'm at work, I'll know I've crossed the line.

A great choice for those who like The Sims but are getting bored with it waiting for House Party, Hot Date, etc.

awesome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

this is a great game. you can even produce those classic Southern Island Cigars that we all know so well

It's a review!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 28 / 29
Date: August 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

With the somewhat sparse selection of Mac games, I pre-ordered Tropico at the same time as I got the Diablo II expansion pack. When Tropico finally came, I installed it and haven't gone back to Diablo II yet.

You start the game by taking control of an island in the Caribbean Sea as "El Presidente" in 1950. Either starting from scratch or choosing a pre-built scenario like in Sim City, you build it up with apartments and tenements, farms and mines, and about 50 other buildings. At the same time, you have to try and appease the communist and capitalist factions on the island, as well as 4 others. If you don't, protesters and rebels might pop up, and U.S. gunboats could even threaten an invasion. Or, you could simply lose the next election, unless, of course, you "re-interpret the ballots".

Tropico has a fairly large learning curve, but there's a good tutorial, the first one in a game I've liked, and an advisor will give you tips as the game progresses. You can just go in and mess around, or look at incredibly detailed charts and check out each individual named character with specific traits and feelings as you become more comfortable with the game. Also, there is no instant gratification for getting money; if you build a farm, for example, you don't get paid until the planted crops grow, are harvested, and carried to the dock. This involves a lot of strategy, and you might spend a year or two in the hole until the tobacco gets sold, and you pop up to $30,000 immediately. The music is also perfect, a great island mix that really sets the mood.

Unfortunately, I can only give it 4 stars, because there are some fairly important things that need to be fixed in a patch. Buildings can't be rotated, bulldozing things isn't instantaneous, I haven't found a way to delete saved games in the program, and a couple other aspects detract from the game. However, they don't cause any major problems, and Tropico remains one of my favorite games that will probably keep me occupied all the way until Civ 3 comes out. Definitely pick this game up, it's well worth your time and money.

Extremely addictive & challenging

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: September 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've only had a Mac in my household for a month now (Titanium Powerbook G4 400mhz), and after a week of wishing I had some Mac games to play, I purchased Tropico and Tomb Raider at the same time. I played Tomb Raider a little bit, then popped Tropico into the CD slot, and *hours* later I stopped only because my wrists were complaining! Tropico does have a bit of a learning curve, but trial and error is part of what makes the game so addictive. At the beginning of a new game, you are asked to set certain goals for your island nation -- happiness of the citizens, capital accumulation, democracy and so forth. You also define the personal characteristics of your dictator (you) -- strengths (examples: hard-working, honest, educated) and weaknesses (examples: gambler, dishonest, ugly) and special affiliations with certain groups. I haven't even scratched the surface at using all of the features in the Almanac. Mostly, gamers will find the Lists -> Happiness tab of most use to ensure the citizens are reasonably satisfied with your rule.

I've always been a fan of sims, ever since the original SimCity, and Tropico is by far my favorite. It has all the makings of a classic game, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to playing Tomb Raider now that I've discovered Tropico! I never knew being a dictator was so challenging.

Well, I'm off to check on how my tobacco and papaya crops are growing, while the cheap hotel construction nears completion ... it's too bad it's 1970 and I still haven't brought electric power to my island! ;)

Different

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: October 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying something about technical aspects. I run this game on a 233 MHz G3 with 160 MB RAM - well above the minimum system requirements - and it is still fairly slow. In other words, if you are interested in Tropico, you should probably want to adhere to TopPop's recomendation of at least 256 MB and a 400 MHz processor.

The game itself is quite engaging, although I would rate it slightly lower than Age of Empires or even Ceasar 3. However, there are some very special aspects of the game that make it worthwhile and that one should be aware of: In most games of this kind you attempt to strike a delicate balance between your population's needs and your need as a ruler to make a buck. At some point, you probably get bored with this and you hit the "save" button and start to wreck havoc - just to see what happens - and you see your skillfully created world disintegrate.

Not so with Tropico: So what if you don't provide enough food, if you supress religion, or don't build nice houses? And what about the fact that you are an ugly alcoholic? (these are actual choices in the game!) If somebody complains, you simply bribe them (with money from your Swiss bank account, perhaps) or, an all-time classic, you put a contract out on their head. Fear that your people will topple you from your seat of power? No, no, not while your in the driver's seat: You won't have regular elections and if you do need to have one to appease your people, you will simply rig it. You have your TV and radio statios broadcast such interesting shows as "The Government, your Friend" and "El Presidente, All Day." Plus, you still have your special-ops police, well armed palace guards, and an excellent military. So, there is no need to worry...

You see, if you aproach this game from the usual perspective of doing good in order to stay in power, you will only have half the fun. This is your chance to be corrupt and fill your own koffers without regard for anyone else. This is what makes this game so challenging - you need to overcome the urge to be a good ruler and realize that it's okay to be mean!

This is possibly one of the best strategy games ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Tropico is a great strategy game because of the different people you interact with. Also you can customize the landscape and difficulty. I like it because it is like a real government on an impoverished island. There are many political factions in the game that you must please to stay in office. If you choose not to please these factions you can be certain that rebellions will occur. Although putting down rebellions is fun too. Overall this game is really fun if you like real life strategy games, because of the many things that are possible in the game and the diverse people.

Doesn't work on Mac OS X 10.1.x (Patch fixes biggest problem)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: November 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

A patch is out that fixes the launching problem. Still occasionally crashes in the edicts (save before issuing edicts). This game seems to be based on Railroad Tycoon II, at least the graphics of the game and its GUI. [I would love to play this game, but Tropico crashes when trying to play video on launch in either the Classic or Carbon versions. I haven't booted into OS 9 in months, and have played other recent games (Age of Empires II Gold and The Sims: House Party) without too many problems. If you are running only OS X 10.1.x then the game won't start. I believe MacSoft is working on a patch. Since I have other processes running in the background, even when I'm playing games, booting into OS 9 is not the solution for me.]

Good Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: April 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy playing this game. You really need a good video card in the later parts of a game to keep the great graphics.

Great if you like sim games

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: July 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is outstanding if you like sim games. Graphics, music, etc. are all excellent. The reason why I only played it for a few hours is because I just don't enjoy all of the detail I need to attend to in the game. If you are the type who loves building model railroad environments with trees, stores, houses, etc, this will be right up your alley. I couldn't care less about planting shrubs or building tobacco plantations on this island. I grew so tired of it that I was hoping for a peasant uprising just to get some excitement going. Eventually, once the novelty of the premise wore off, I deleted it from my hard drive for good. Not my cup of tea. Like the SIms game (where you even have to have the characters empty their bladders) it is just boring to be responsible for so much inconsequential detail.

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