Tropico 4

It’s long been a figure of our imagination to create things to our liking. From stacking countless Lego bricks to make your own personal metropolis, to digital animation used today; or you could choose to avoid the building process entirely and become an el presidente and terrorize the citizens of Tropico Island. The options are up to you for what you want to create.

Tropico 4 by Haeminot Games has never been one to fool an audience. Tropico is real time simulator, which barrows many elements from Sim City, but brings many elements that aren’t found in genre and help make it what it is today. One of the things that your easily going to like about the game is you are not invisible. Unlike other games, the citizens of Tropico Island dearly note your actions. If you end up acting like Fidel Castro, the citizens on the island will start a revolution (VIVA LA REVOULTION). Sooner or later, your military will have to suppress the uprising or else the citizen will over throw you from government.

When I first started playing Tropico 4, I killed every protester, let in ever immigrant and didn’t supply enough housing for my citizens. Fast-forwarding three years in my el presidente term, my days were numbered with every citizen on the island trying to gun me down. It’s these moments that make the series stand out because your actions have deep ramifications and help create a unique experience for yourself. My only gripe with this is I wish this was expanded on in the in the Modern Times expansion.

Tropico 4 finally welcomes it’s self into the 21 century with the latest expansion called Modern Times and with that comes the latest goodies. New building, taller landmarks and a more traditional look that make cities resemble with what you are currently living in. If you think it was impressive how Tom Cruise scaled the tallest tower in the world in Dubai, then it's easily to do so (if you have the money of course) to create your own 21 century empire. Along with updated buildings, real time simulator fans will greatly appreciate the curved roads options to adequately customize your city. All together however, the look just feels like fancy re skin. Don’t get me wrong, modern times gives the player more options from the outset and I love what it brings to the table, but the expansion fails to fix problem found in the original game

The presentation values in Tropico 4: Modern Times are one of the biggest disappointments about the game. Either it’s the Xbox 360 or the game it’s self, the regardless of amount of time you spent ruling the city as el presidente. Tropico 4 fails to create a living breathing city, even though it dose a lot of things right with customizable buildings, eco friendly options and etc, but it miss a crucial part.

Citizens on Tropico Island won’t appear on screen, even though you have a huge population in your city. Now to a certain extent the game dose do this, with the citizen’s frequently revolting and sparking revolutions on the island, but it’s still very few and far between. I wanted to see my citizens in my town crowded together, or see mass traffic jams due to the amount people on the island. For this reason alone, I felt kicked back from the experience and never was fully immersed.

Besides personal problems, the user interface on the Xbox 360 is still behind where it should be. Organize and micromanaging your city can be troublesome and frankly a pain to create your city to your liking. Rotating objects isn’t as automatic as it should be, but it’s still doable none else. What is going annoy most players is the of lack on screen guidance. Placing a farm in the right area can be a difficult for some because it doesn’t explain what you should be aiming for and what to avoid. Now the game dose have a great tutorial system, but outside the tutorial system the game fails to teach you the proper success.

Modern Times is a good addition to the Tropico series, but the expansion still has the same mistakes. It’s great that the Tropico 4 made the jump to the 21 century, but it’s almost to little to late at this point. When you start digging and finding out what the expansion is all about. You will still see a game that has great potential, but is squandered by mistakes.

Score: 6.5 out of 10