
	Platform Xbox 360 Genre Strategy Publisher Kalypso Media Developer Haemimont Games ESRB T (Teen) Released February 16, 2010

- The music is awesome - Some good strategy and planning necessary for success - Dictatorial control is also awesome (and sometimes funny)

- It was a valiant attempt but the control is finicky and clunky

Review: Tropico 3 (PC) Review: Tropico (PC) Review: Red Alert 3 (360)
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Tropico 3

Score: 7.0 / 10

I think campaign missions in this kind of game is always a horrible fit. A tutorial

section is always appreciated since game manuals are getting thinner and thinner (if they're included at all) but a objective-filled campaign has always struck a discordant note. A management sim along the lines of SimCity only need a sandbox and a "Go!" button and that's where I had the most fun with Tropico 3.

Stepping into the guise of an island "Presidente" and assembling my own version of what constitutes a benevolent dictatorship piece by piece and edict by crazy edict. If

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I have to send the military in to keep things running more or less smoothly, so be it. After all, with an economy to run and infrastructure to put in place and international relations to deal with, I don't always have time to make people happy (but I will help them behave). Maintaining control over everything is great and the things that can be tweaked are many and deep, and it has all the

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aspects I like about city sims, but there's the problem of the system used to navigate all this.

It still boggles my mind that the Xbox 360 doesn't support mouse and keyboard specifically for games like Tropico 3. Using the controller for a game like this is like using a butter knife to perform thoracic surgery. You get an approximation of the end result, but it's certainly a lot messier. The controller makes everything feel inexact and most of the menus feel clunky. There's just no way around this and because it's a PC port it really doesn't feel like anything was toned down to fit into the 360 version. Since you'll be dealing with both of these things a lot, it had an effect on just how much fun I pulled out of the game.

Tropico 3 is a slower, "thinking" game so the clunkier aspects of the control don't have a dramatic affect on how the game plays out -- in an RTS setting, this same scenario would be disastrous -- but here it's merely annoying.

It's probably a good thing then that music is awesome. It's equal parts soothing and fitting to the tropical island despot theme. Can't say enough good things about the music.

This genre is notably absent from the console world. A number of real-time strategy games have made in-roads in establishing this almost PC-exclusive genre on consoles but until mouse and keyboard get the nod, it has hit a wall. I'm just glad it has done so with a steel drum beat.

- D.D. Nunavut

(April 22, 2010)