Tropico 4 is the newest city sim on the market developed by Haemimont Games as a full-fledged sequel to Tropico 3. Tropico 4 offers the players a multitude of different features for players of all levels including ‘free play’ and the campaign that includes 20 levels they you won’t get though quickly, unless you cheat.
Upon embarking on any mission you have to choose your Presidente, the number of pre made Presidents is huge spanning. In addition to all the primates you can make your own where you select the looks of your avatar (character) and name. Once this is done you then move on to select all the personal details about your avatar that affect the game play. There are 3 different sections you need to select, background, rise to power and traits. This is where my lacking is maths kicks in, if I am correct there is over 10,000 different stat effecting combinations you can choose from, this does not include the looks. This means that you can make an avatar exactly how you want fitting your style of play. The selection greatly effects difficulty of your game depending on the choices and the type of mission you will be doing.
The main campaign in Tropico 4 spans across the cold war with an interesting story containing many twists and turns that you properly will not see coming. El Presidente has to overcome many challenges such as rebels, betrayals from foreign leaders and providing for the need of the population. The missions revolve around how El Presidente turns Tropico in to a nation of glory. Within each mission there are a number of side quests that you can do giving rewards and generally helping you on your way and directing what you build normally to your advantage. The quests normally involve creating building earning money in either your personal back or the islands treasury. Not every mission on quests is like that however the majority are meaning it can be quest repetitive.
On the missions you will also encounter some random or not so random natural disasters such as volcanoes hurricanes or droughts. Sometimes these will come at the most inconvenient times making the level much harder. You will also encounter rebel uprising some of these will be related to quests however they happen much more frequently when you treat your people badly.
Your people overall happiness can be viewed next to the mini-map; you should pay careful attention to this as a low overall happiness will cause rebels and they can be a pesky problem to sort out. To keep your people happy you will need to provide for their needs such as housing, food entertainment. There are many more factors to the happiness however if you have these 3 covered in addition to providing them with work you will have no problems.
Throughout the game you will find many humorous things happening, normally from the radio. This really makes the game free ‘funner’ and less serious like some game such as when a tornado comes the general says ‘We are under attack… don’t worry we are preparing a counter attack’ about a tornado!! Makes me laugh most times. This really lightens up the game and stops it from being dull.
When reviewing this game was played on the Dell Inspiron N7110 with the graphics set at high, showing that the game can be played on even lower end computers without a problem. With these settings the game ran extremely smoothly even during things such a tornadoes. However the graphics don’t look like they have changed much since Tropico 3, they are more refined than the previous game but not drastically changed. The game does look great for a sim game so despite the graphics not being changed much you do not fell as if they are behind the times.
Personally this game is great and for anyone who likes city management you have to buy this. The humour stops the game from becoming too dull and repetitive. The game does nothing amazing but it does what is states on the box and keeps me coming back to play more.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
