It’s hard to read much menace into objectives when they’re delivered by a jowly caricature of Richard Nixon.

Like in Tropico 3, the sinister undertones of totalitarian oppression and corruption in Tropico 4 are largely offset by the tongue-in-cheek tone. Just ask Congress: in government, everything is a trade-off. Issuing the Social Security edict will earn you citizens’ respect but deplete your Treasury. Praise the capitalists and you risk pissing off your Soviet benefactors. You can’t increase security without threatening liberty. Tropico 4, like its predecessors, is an exercise in balancing competing interests. And honestly, who cares what country the USSR invaded? Sure, Senator, I’ll condemn the attack-as long as you keep those aid dollars flowing. The Church wants you to ban alcohol, but wealthy tourists won’t party in dry nightclubs. Construction on your new logging camp has barely wrapped when the environmentalist complaints start pouring in. In Tropico 4, the latest installment of Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games’s Caribbean city-building series, you hardly get a moment to think before some new demand requires your attention. Grant reviews the banana republic simulator Tropico 4.Įl Presidente never gets a break. However, for those who stick with it (or those who are familiar with the series or genre), it's a solid addition to the Tropico line of games.December is a slow month for new games, so over the next few weeks we’ll look back at notable Fall releases that we haven’t reviewed yet.

Worse still, the tutorial takes quite a while to work through, and some players will be tempted to skip it, which will ultimately hurt them.

It's intimidating - and even with a good tutorial, it takes a while to get your sea legs. The game is remarkably deep, but that might actually work against it with people who are new to this genre. Playing the PC version of the game is much smoother. The game's Achilles heel is the Xbox controller, which handles the enormous slew of in-game option choices adequately, but not admirably. The tweaks to the game, such as the reworked goal system and inclusion of natural disasters, improve on the formula and keep players engaged. There's a strong argument to be made, though, that if something's not broken, then there's no need to fix it. TROPICO 4 is a lot like Tropico 3 (which was a lot like its predecessors as well) - so if you're looking for an innovative city-building experience, this isn't it.

Tropico 4 controls xbox 360