boxshot from gamefaqs.com - I just resized it
Well, it's been a week or two since I got Tropico 3 (one of those rare cases where Germany actually gets a game earlier than the US ) so I've already played it for quite a while. And seeing that there actually are some people around on TWC that are interested in the game I've just decided to set up this review as my premiere thread for TWC.
So let's jump right in, shall we?
And a little "history lesson" wouldn't be too out of place, would it?
As can be seen from the name of the new game, the series has already got two predecessors of the third game.
The original game Tropico (and its later addon Paradise Isle which mainly expanded on the tourism aspect) put you into the position of the ruler (read: dictator ) of the state of Tropico, situated on a fictitious island in the Caribbean. As "El Presidente" it is your task to build up an economy to earn the cash you need for further developments, make sure that all your citizens are happy and that you remain in office (whatever measures it might take) for as long as possible, usually starting in the 1950s.
The second game, Tropico 2: Pirate Cove, changed the setting from 20th century backwater island state to that of a 17th/18th century pirate island, which caused some major changes in the gameplay mechanisms but preserved the general "tropical" feeling.
Now, the third game has been developed by a new developer (Haemimont Games who you might know from Imperium Romanum and Grand Ages: Rome) and these guys decided on going back to the roots of the series. Which means that we're again back in the 20th century and in the seat of "El Presidente". One thing I should note at this point is that Tropico 3 is more a remake of the original game rather than an independent one. It's still recommendable for people accustomed to the series, though, so you guys can read on anyway.
Tropico 3 uses an own graphics engine that's probably derived from the one used in other games of the same dev (e.g. Imperium Romanum).
The general visual quality might not be at the very top of what's possible these days especially in FPS games like Crysis but T3 nonetheless is very good-looking for a city builder/economy type of game. As far as I know the only other games from the same genre and with comparable or better looks are the two newest games of the Anno series, Anno 1701 and Anno 1404 respectively (also known as 1701 AD and 1404 AD) as well as the other games of the same dev as Tropico 3 which is hardly surprising as they seem to use the same or a similar engine as I said above.
Models
Tropico 3s' models are all designed very well. A few buildings are looking similar to what they looked like in the original game but most have been redesigned to fit in better with the setting and a more modern world nowadays. You'll see docks full of containers, Spanish/Mexican style houses, large apartment blocks, small rural houses, various kinds of cars ranging from a taxi to a truck, small planes, people of various professions, animals etc. There also tend to be some details to buildings like small piles of trash in front of cheap huts and farms, fences and the like. I would have liked a bit more of that integrated eye candy, especially for rarer buildings like churches (where's the graveyard?) and large buildings like apartment blocks but all of that isn't too bad after all because you've also got a lot of different decorational items to place on your island.
Textures
As far as I've seen in my game the textures in T3 are very well done as well. You could count every tile on the roof of a house if you wanted to and the textures are also done in such a way that they underline the class and usage of a building. Cheap apartment blocks are looking very dirty and run-down while a luxurious skyscraper hotel is fitted with shiny windows. A standard house looks very clean while a hut looks extremely dirty.
In terms of terrain textures, there's nothing bad to say as well. If you're taking an overlook view over your island you really get the impression that you're actually looking at an island in the caribbean, with rock/mountain textures being very distinct even at a great distance (with other graphical effects playing into this as well I guess). The other terrain textures tend to become rather blurry at these distances but you can still see the individual terrain types.
Graphical feedback
There are a few things where you just have to look closely at parts of your island to see whether something is working or not. Most prominent among these are your farms and logging camps as you can easily see if and (where farms are concerned) what they are producing. Trees are chopped down and replaced by new ones. Crops are planted and you can see them grow from time to time. You can see whether an oil derrick is working or not and you can watch your roads for any traffic problems etc.
The problem is that that's it already. The original game offered some more feedback like small animations playing whenever you issued a political edict or mining for ressources actually deforming the terrain and making it unuseable for anything else (creating some interesting and huge mining craters at times). You'll have none of these things in T3 which is especially weird as the new 3d engine has a huge potential to give you feedback about what's going on on your island. Even if you issue an edict for a mardi gras festival, everything will stay the same. No festival parade, no confetti, no party on the streets.
The Bug
The major gripe I currently have with Tropico 3 is the graphics bug that I first encountered in the demo and which hasn't been solved so far (the game currently being at version 1.04 after the first patch; a patch for this bug is already in development according to the devs). Before I elaborate: Please note that this bug seems to be exclusive to the ATI Radeon X19xx series of graphics cards (as seen on the official forum) so you shouldn't have to worry about it if you're using a model from another ATI series or any Nvidia card.
So, about this bug (look at the water in the first screenshot for a reference):
This bug causes some severe rendering issues with anything related to rather advanced graphical effects. One noteworthy thing is that all aspects of this bug seem to suffer from something I'll just call "line of failure" ("lof" hereafter) meaning that there are some areas on your screen that will be rendered more or less correctly (with some major garbling in it) while the rest won't. The intensity of the "lof"s seems to be entirely random as they can range from a couple of rough diagonal lines to that of a pattern similar to a fingerprint. The individual issues that I've seen so far are:
- Water rendering is left out entirely for the most part with a few random exceptions. This aspect is especially bad for situations where you want to place docks (which have to be on the beach and the water) or when you're trying to build other buildings on the shoreline. Interestingly, the water beyong the map boundary is rendered correctly in all aspects.
- Shadow rendering is messed up completely. If you switch this on, it'll take the current "lof" pattern, colour it in a greyish-blackish tint and then apply it to the entire screen.
- Post processing effects (bloom/HDR, depth of view etc.) suffer from similar issues. While the bloom/HDR effects seem to work more or less correctly (though slightly overdone as they tend to be), depth of view doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't seem to be present at all. At other times it seems to take the "lof" pattern and apply it to your screen - only that it's using a blur effect this time.
Two screenshots of the game to look for general visual quality at high settings.
Resolution at 1280x1024.
Shadows and postprocessing switched off.
Everything else at maximum possible options.
Overal graphical score
I personally don't care that much about graphical quality in comparison to other games but Tropico 3 obviously isn't the top dog in the graphical department so I'll detract half a point for that aspect.
A full point and a half goes away for the graphical feedback. Sure, it's basically just eye candy afterall but it's not only a waste of a lot of potential but also a factor that would have made the game a lot more interesting because you would actually be able to see the result of what you've just decided to do. It would have been a major contribution to the flair of the game as well.
Another two and a half points get detracted for the graphic bugs I noted above. I would very well be able to play Tropico 3 at near-maximum settings (apart from resolution) if it weren't for this bug. Please note again, though, that you can ignore this penalty if you're not using an ATI X19xx series graphics card or if a new patch gets released to fix this issue.
Score: 5.5/10
Note that this category is obviously based on the German version where voiceovers are concerned.
Atmosphere
Most aspects of the game have fitting atmospheric sounds attached to them. You'll hear the ocean, birds and other wild animals, cars, ships, planes etc. All of these sounds are well-done and they're also adding to the atmosphere of the game.
Speech
All characters in the game have some short lines to say when you click on them to look up their personal details. You've also got a radio host who will comment various things happening on your island from time to time. If there aren't any exciting things happening, he'll also occasionally throw in some meaningless but funny lines.
The only downside is that the host tends to get on your nerves later on once you've heard his messages a couple of times. There's an option available to turn the host off so you can use that one once you've heard all the messages over and over.
A thing that I would have liked to change from the original would be voiced briefings and messages but just as it was with the former two games, they're text-only.
Music
As was the case with the other games of the series, Tropico 3 features a soundtrack that fits the games' setting very well. If you're looking for "typical caribbean" music you probably wouldn't need to look much further than this and its predecessors.
There's just one downside to the soundtrack: Lack of variety. That's because the soundtrack seems to be comprised of a relatively low number of titles which seem to be rather long so you'll hear the same titles/melodies again pretty soon.
Overall sound score
The overall quality of the sound in Tropico 3 is very good and all aspects of sound are fitting the setting and atmosphere of the game very well. A lack of variety in music and speech (radio host) as well as a lack of general speech (briefings/messages) do prevent a full score though.
Score: 9.0/10
Gameplay
If you've already played the other games of the series, you'll recognize Tropico 3 pretty fast because it's essentially keeping to the same gameplay system as its predecessors. There are a few new things though. One of the first things you will see is the character creation screen. Unlike the first game, "El Presidente" now is an actual character in the game and you can define what he looks like as well as (similar to the original but now applying to every game rather than just sandbox) what character traits he has. Alternatively, you can also select a character from a short list of various more or less well-known dictators, revolutionaries etc. like Castro, Guevara, Pinochet etc. The look and gender (there's a female presidente now as well, though the choices are a little small there) are entirely cosmetic and don't influence the game at all. Character traits, however, do. In fact they can be so influential that they pre-define the game and how you are going to play it so you've got to carefully pick the aspects you want and balance them (as there are two mandatory drawbacks as well).
Once you've started your game, you'll end up on your island with a few prebuilt buildings and a small amount of cash (your only ressource, you don't need construction materials or anything) with which you've got to set up your first basic infrastructure and economy. Pretty soon, your population will start to ask you for "more of everything" - better houses, medical supplies, religious services etc. Naturally, the foreign diplomacy won't keep quite for long as well, especially if your character traits are lopsided in favour of one side or if you mess up your relations in other ways.
An important part in Tropico 3 (as in the other games of the series) is to carefully balance increasing your economical output (and thus profits) and fulfilling the demands of your population because there are many different bad things that can happen when your population becomes unhappy.
The most difficult thing in the game is the start - you need to do a lot of investments and you're always short of being broke while your population wants all the fancy civil services (which, apart from entertainment, don't earn any money but burn a lot of it). As soon as you've got your first solid income the game tends to become a lot easier because you can finally have a go at building all the fancy stuff that you want and/or need. Once you've got a second or third production chain up and running you basically don't have to care that much about your economy anymore though, which is a bit disappointing. Which is where the events may come in handy as they can easily crash your balance of income vs. spending or create some difficulties you've got to adjust to before returning to your usual expansion work.
When you've secured your economic position and the standing with your population, you can finally go to work at your goals which range from "export x amount of good a" to "do a, b, c" to "stay in office until 19xx".
There are a couple of things that have been changed from the original Tropico. Unlike the original, the roads of Tropico 3 are actually working (in the first game they were just ignored despite a slight speed bonus) and one of the key aspects of success is placing roads and garages the right way so that your population does not have to walk too much and your transportation system becomes more efficient.
Another new thing is the election speech that you can set up once it is time for the next elections. You can select what topics you want to discuss in the speech and all of these topics have a direct influence on how many people are going to vote for you rather than for your opponent. One of the possible options is to promise something, e.g. building a church. Fulfilling this promise after the election increases the satisfaction with your regime while not doing so causes the contrary.
On top of that you can send "El Presidente" around yourself to visit construction sites and buildings which has a beneficial effect on the performance of those structures.
There currently are a few problematic things about the gameplay as well though.
Tropico 3 has small marketplaces as buildings that distribute food to your population so as to prevent them dying from starvation. The marketplaces seem to be bugged at the moment though because they don't or only rarely work at all which usually leads to some of your people dying of starvation which in turn prevents a major increase in population happiness.
Another thing is that tourism (which forms an entire branch of the economy on its own) currently isn't a very feasible way to make money. You'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to build (and a couple of thousands more to support) a tourist area but the tourists tend to not really spend a lot money in your buildings because they seem to have a very tight spending limit at the moment. In fact, your industrial exports are going to make many times more money than your tourism system while being significantly less intensive in terms of personel and investments in the long run.
Last but not least there's currently a limit on how large your population can be (around 800 which is an awful lot for most games but far too low for large islands) and another limit on how many road crossings you can build (the actual length of your road network seems to be unlimited.
Overall gameplay score
The overall gameplay of Tropico 3 is very good and entertaining, especially if you're playing scenarios that offer a lot of events that interfere with your own planning because you've got to adapt to the game.
Long-term play is a little disappointing in the end when you've gotten used to adapt to most difficult situations of the game or if you're playing a scenario with just a few influential events but it's probably also the time where you're going to shift from expanding your island to optimizing it so this is more a question of personal taste rather than game design imo. Another question of personal taste are achievments. They're there but I personally don't care too much about them so they don't count for the score here.
As I said above, there are a few bad sides to the gameplay as well.
Tourism is hardly feasible to be used as a main income source and marketplaces are next to useless for supplying your population. I'll take away a point and a half for this.
Limiting the population and amount of road crossings in a city builder/economy game isn't exactly the smartest move to do, even if you're doing it for preserving the performance for every player. In my opinion it should be the players choice whether or not to go on with expanding their island. But as there are more than enough occasions where you can somehow circumvent these things by optimizing your population or your road network, I'll only substract half a point for this.
Score: 8.0/10
Story
Well, you're probably asking yourself: "Story? Since when are you expecting a real story of a city builder game?". The answer is: "I would like to but I don't."
There are quite a few city builder/economy games that actually have a story or something coming close to a story but a cross-campaign story isn't exactly what I'm referring to here. What I am referring to here are the scenarios that Tropico 3 offers to you in the course of its "campaign". You've got to note here that the "campaign" in Tropico 3 isn't a real campaign. You've got a campaign map with several islands, each presenting a different challenge, but they're actually not connected to each other at all - you're playing single scenarios only. However, each scenario has a different background to it that is also reflected through the circumstances you'll encounter in that specific scenario. The first few scenarios (the first two are available in the demo; the first four or so are more similar to "learn by doing" scenarios without being a full tutorial) aren't exactly the best or most creative but they're still not bad. Some later scenarios are a lot heavier on events that on the one hand tell part of the story of that specific scenario and on the other hand offer some choices as to what will happen next or how the circumstances will change on your island - sometimes with drastic consequences you didn't foresee. What's also noteworthy is that most of these scenarios and their events tend to be written with the same humoristic undertone that was already present in the earlier games so it can be quite entertaining at times to watch the outcome of your previous event decisions.
The scenarios from T3 are still far from perfect though. Some scenarios have next to no events at all which can make them a bit dull if you haven't got any major issues to deal with. Events could have been quite useful to spice things up a bit here. A similar thing holds true with scenarios rich in events - there still aren't enough events to my taste because I've found the events themselves to be well done and adding to the feeling of being "El Presidente" quite a lot. That's worth a point for me though it's quite subjective here - you could add half a point again if you're the type of person that optimizes every corner of your city to the highest degree and that doesn't really care about events anyway.
A real campaign and story would have been very much possible and interesting as far as I can think about it but I've also got to add that the game is working very well without a real campaign as well so I merely substract half a point for this.
Score: 8.5/10
Overall Score
Graphics: 5.5/10 (note: 8.5/10 if the graphics bug were solved)
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 8.5/10
Overall: 31/40 -> 77.5% (note: 85% if the graphics bug were solved)
Note: As of version 1.09, the graphics bug has been solved - so Tropico 3 now deserves the full score given here even for people using those cards.
Comments
Tropico 3 overall proved to be a very good game.
As long as you're either not using an ATI X19xx series graphics card or you're waiting for the patch you'll get a game with very good graphics for its genre.
The sound aspect might be lacking a bit of variety in the long run but T3 still is among the best games in this area, even more so as it's pretty lonely out there in the caribbean setting of games.
The gameplay is very challenging in the first part of every game when you're struggling to build up your island while fulfilling the needs of your population and trying to keep a stable international position. It gets a bit easier once everythings running but you've still got to be careful until you've got a real heap of money to throw around. If you're going for a long game it might become a little boring later on, especially if you're playing a scenario with few events or sandbox mode with limited events and low difficulty but there are still enough possibilities for you to find something to optimize to the last degree. If you're the type to go for achievments - they're there as well.
If you happen to come across some of the event-heavy scenarios, you'll probably love the style they and their stories have been designed in. There's no real campaign but it's not too bad with an open-end game like Tropico 3 where many people are probably going to play the sandbox mode anyway.
A few general comments.
If you've played the original games and loved them you'll love Tropico 3 as well because it's basically a remake of the first game with newer graphics and a few tweaks. If you haven't played one of the first games but you like city builder/economy games you can seriously consider T3 without too much thought as well because it will offer you a different setting than most other games. Even people you're more of a beginner with city builder/economy games can have a look at it though it might take a little while to get used to the rather hard starting years but after that it's all the more rewarding for these people to see what they have accomplished.
As I've said above, there's also a sandbox mode in the game as well that you can use to create your own games outside of the pre-designed scenarios in the campaign as well as a "challenge editor" which you can use to create scenarios to then play or upload to exchange with other players. I haven't tested that aspect of the game yet but I guess it should be quite interesting for people who are into the inter-player competitiveness thing.
Some things I also wanted to say about the various things I critized above:
The graphics bug earned the games' graphical score a hefty penalty but you've also got to note that it is in no way a game breaking issue, it's just looking extremely bad and might make building on the shore a bit more complicated because you cannot clearly distinguish the actual shoreline. So if you think you'd really like the game and don't care too much about not seeing the water and having to disable some of the graphical options by all means don't let the graphics bug keep you from getting the game.
It's the same with the tourism and marketplace issue. You can circumvent the tourism issue by keeping tourism a secondary income source with your industry providing the major income (which you have to do anyway as tourism is too expensive to consider it a starting strategy). The only thing you can do about the marketplace issue is to try and build some farms or fisheries close to larger residential areas so you have a local food supply. That's merely easing the problem a bit but starvation never tends to get out of hand for the most part if you're doing this. Incase it does you've got your immigration office.
So all in all I found Tropico 3 to be a very good game for its class.
Feel free to ask any questions or comment on my review.
Edit: Repaired the boxshot.