ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html><head><title>Tropico 3 - PC Games - The Armchair Empire</title> <meta content="en-ca" http-equiv="Content-Language"> <meta content="text/html; charset=unicode" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <style type="text/css"> <!-- A:link {color:#0000ff} A:visited {color:#0000ff} A:active {color:#00FF00} A {text-decoration:none} body {scrollbar-base-color:#0000CC;} --> </style> <meta name="keywords" content="tropico, tropico 3 reviews, strategy games, cold war, Haemimont Games, kalypso, pc games, pc game reviews, video games"> <meta name="description" content="A PC review of Tropico 3 from Kalypso and Haemimont Games"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18852"></head> <body bgcolor="#3c6bc4"> <script language="php"> include ("../../header.htm"); </script> <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="970" height="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td bgcolor="#efefef" height="1" valign="top" rowspan="3" width="300"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="300" height="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td height="1" width="298" colspan="2"><img border="0" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/game-vitals-300.jpg" width=300 height=30> <tr> <td height="1" width="152"> <p align="center"><iframe style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&amp;bc1=000000&amp;IS2=1&amp;bg1=99CCFF&amp;fc1=000000&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;t=thearmchairem-20&amp;o=1&amp;p=8&amp;l=as1&amp;m=amazon&amp;f=ifr&amp;asins=B002MCG8MI" frameBorder=0 marginWidth=0 scrolling=no></iframe></p> <td height="1" background=http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/blue-vitals-backing-small-d.jpg width=152> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana><b>Platform</b></font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>PC</font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Genre</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Strategy</font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Publisher</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Kalypso Media</font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Developer</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma" lang=EN-US><font color="#ffffff" size="2">Haemimont Games</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>ESRB</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face="Verdana">T (Teen)</font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><b><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>Released</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana>October 20, 2009</font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px"><font color="#ffffff">&nbsp; </font></p></td> <tr> <td height="14" width="298" colspan="2"><img border="0" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/the-good-tag.jpg" width=300 height=30> </td> <tr> <td height="9" width="298" colspan="2"> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">- Good consistent visual style</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">- Nice sampler of Latin tunes</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">- Multiple aids for building placement</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p></td> <tr> <td width="298" colspan="2"><img border="0" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/the-bad.jpg" width=300 height=30> </td> <tr> <td height="7" width="298" colspan="2"> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size=2 face=Tahoma>- Music selection gets repetitive after a while</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size=2 face=Tahoma>- Lack of visual feedback on certain actions in game</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size=2 face=Tahoma>- Mediocre sound effects and voice acting</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p></td> <tr> <td height="13" width="298" colspan="2"><img border="0" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/similar-games.jpg" width=300 height=30> </td> <tr> <td height="10" width="298" colspan="2"> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/tropico.htm"><b>Review:</b> Tropico (PC)</a></font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/trine.htm"><b>Review:</b> Trine (PC)</a></font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/civilization-4.htm"><b> Review:</b> Civilization IV (PC)</a></font></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p></td> <tr> <td bgcolor="#808080" height="7" width="298" colspan="2"> <p align="center"><font color="#ffffff" size="1" face=Verdana><b>Newsletter</b></font> </p></td> <tr> <td height="14" width="298" colspan="2"> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px" align="center"><b><font size="1" face=Tahoma>Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.</font></b></p> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center"><b><font size=1 face=Tahoma>Enter E-Mail Address Below:</font></b></p> <form method="post" action="/cgi-bin/mailinglist/mailmachine.cgi"> <p align="center"><input name="address"><br><input value="Subscribe" CHECKED type=radio name=action> Subscribe | Unsubscribe <input value=Unsubscribe type=radio name=action><br><input value="Update" type="submit"></p></form></td></tr></tbody></table></td> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" height="1" valign="top" width="500" colspan="2"> <h1 style="LINE-HEIGHT: 100%; MARGIN: 0px 10px"><font face="Tahoma">Tropico 3</font></h1> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px"><b><font size="5" face=Tahoma>Score: 6.5 / 10</font></b></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Back when the Cold War was in full force, most people would have looked to Europe as the focal point for potential hostilities and shadowy duels between the CIA and KGB.&nbsp; The region of the Caribbean wasn&#39;t what most people would have thought was a potential hotbed of low intensity conflict or subtle spy games.&nbsp; In fact, most people would have told you that, with the exception of Cuba and Haiti, the Caribbean was a pretty quiet place during the Cold War.&nbsp; In Tropico 3, you have the chance to play things out a little differently.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal" align=center><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-1.jpg"><img border=2 alt="tropico 3" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-1_small.jpg" width=180 height=135></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-2.jpg"><img border=2 alt="tropico 3" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-2_small.jpg" width=180 height=135></a></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span>&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">The third entry in the Tropico series puts you in charge of a Caribbean island as any one of several historical dictators and Cold War strongmen from Fidel Castro to Augusto Pinochet to Eva Peron.&nbsp; Playing through the campaign, you&#39;re faced with a different scenario on each new island that you rule over with different primary</font></span></p></td> <td bgcolor="#808080" height="1" valign="top" rowspan="3" width="170"> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center"><font size="1"> <script language="php"> include ("../../ads-rightside.htm"); </script> </font> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center">&nbsp; <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="160"> <tbody> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" width="160"> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center"><img border=0 src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/site-essentials-2k5/related-topics.jpg" width=160 height=35></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px" class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face=Tahoma><b><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Review-Subcategories/pc-game-reviews.htm">- PC Game Reviews</a></b></font> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 5px" class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face=Tahoma><b><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/Review-Subcategories/strategy-game-reviews.htm"> - Strategy Game Reviews</a></b></font></p></tr></tbody></table></p></td></tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" valign="top" width="160"> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">objectives and multiple bonus objectives that appear as you progress further into the scenario.&nbsp; You must balance the basic needs of the people for food, shelter, and decent medical care with their more personal demands such as job satisfaction, religious freedom, and general human rights.&nbsp; Various factions on and off the island affect how well you do your job, how much money you pull in for the country, </font></span></p></td> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" valign="center" width="340"> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center"><font size="1" face=Tahoma><b>Advertisement</b></font> <p style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px" align="center"><font size="1" face=Tahoma> <script language="php"> include ("../../emb-ad.htm"); </script> </font></p></td></tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" valign="top" width="500" colspan="2"> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">and how much you can sock away in your Swiss bank account.&nbsp; If the campaign doesn&#39;t grab you, or you have some strange aversion to using a historical dictator as your alter ego, there are options for a randomized sandbox and for creating your own personal dictator with his or her own strengths and flaws.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span>&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">From a visual standpoint, Tropico 3 looks decent.&nbsp; The architecture for the buildings in the game has a predominant Spanish flavor, which is perfectly fine, and there all manner of little touches like the cars that bustle through the island to help sell the concept that the game is taking place during the Cold War.&nbsp; Character models are fairly well done but they&#39;re not superdetailed, which works just fine for a SimCity-style game of this sort.&nbsp; While I can understand making the character models fit into a general design based on the occupation a Tropican currently has, the amount of variety could have been improved on skin textures.&nbsp; There wasn&#39;t much in the way of problems like texture cracking or collision problems that I could make out.&nbsp; The game had some neat weather effects here and there but there wasn&#39;t a day/night cycle which would have really made buildings like the cabaret and night clubs really pop visually.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span>&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">The game&#39;s audio elements are generally underwhelming.&nbsp; The soundtrack for the game does have some nice tunes, and one or two of them are definitely catchy, but I think I would have liked a larger playlist with more variety, some reggae and calypso beats and more diversity in the Latin stuff.&nbsp; The sound effects are serviceable but they feel a little flat.&nbsp; Likewise, the voice acting in the game is exceedingly sparse.&nbsp; Aside from the DJ who makes radio announcements every so often when certain game events happen, there&#39;s only a few canned responses for the sim citizens of Tropico and some very obvious cut-and-paste clips when your despotic alter ego makes a speech prior to an election.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal" align=center><a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-3.jpg"><img border=2 alt="tropico 3" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-3_small.jpg" width=180 height=135></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-4.jpg"><img border=2 alt="tropico 3" src="http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/pc/tropico-3/tropico-3-4_small.jpg" width=180 height=135></a></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span>&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Gameplay in Tropico 3 doesn&#39;t quite hit the sweet spot of &quot;easy to learn, difficult to master.&quot;&nbsp; On the plus side of things, you have several tools at your disposal through overlays to help better focus your efforts when it comes to setting up buildings to exploit the island&#39;s natural resources or managing crime.&nbsp; This is particularly helpful when you&#39;re trying to set up farms for different kinds of crops and you need to get the right ones in place.&nbsp; On the minus side, you seem to go through a lot of trial-and-error and multiple restarts of each scenario because you didn&#39;t quite get things laid out like you wanted the first time, or even the first few times, and it becomes a practical impossibility to just level everything and start over short of a scenario restart.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">While the sim citizens of Tropico have various needs modeled, there seems to be a lack of prioritization of how those needs get fulfilled, and often to the detriment of building your island empire.&nbsp; On several occasions, building projects might go an entire game year or more without being completed or even started for no discernible reason, even when there was plenty of money in the treasury and the construction priority was set to high.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Another problem seems to be that there&#39;s a lack of visual feedback in the game.&nbsp; Sure, when rebels attempt to storm the palace and empty a clip into your own presidential self, it&#39;s pretty obvious.&nbsp; But what about when you execute some of the special policy actions in the game?&nbsp; If I blow a few grand on Mardi Gras celebrations, I want to see parades in the street with colorfully dressed simizens and floats.&nbsp; If I decide to host the Pan-Am Games, I want to see at least some of the competitions.&nbsp; And if I target my political enemies for assassination by my secret police, there had better be gunmen on grassy knolls taking potshots till they get the job done.&nbsp; I don&#39;t want to just hear about any of that through a radio announcement by smarmy DJ Juanito.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma"></font></span>&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=EN-US><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Tropico 3 isn&#39;t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.&nbsp; But for some reason, it takes all the potential fun out of being a Caribbean dictator.&nbsp; The tongue-in-cheek tone of the game almost seems to mock you as much as it mocks the real life despots of the Cold War.&nbsp; If you can shrug that off, you&#39;ll find a decent little sim.</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=en-us><font size="2" face="Tahoma">- Axel Cushing</font></span></p> <p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 120%; MARGIN: 0px 10px" class="MsoNormal"><span lang=en-us><font size="1" face="Tahoma">(November 23, 2009)</font></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0px 10px">&nbsp;</p></td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> <script language="php"> include ("../../footer.htm"); 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