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Tropico 3 First Impressions

We caught up with El Presidente's shady dealings in this latest instalment to the colourful series.

In Tropico 3, you reassume the role of dictator El Presidente, a position that affords you ultimate control of a banana republic from the height of the Cold War to the 1990s. Tropico 2 eschewed the Cold War for a pirate theme, however, current publisher Kalypso is taking us back to a modern-day totalitarian paradise with Tropico 3, and we managed to get a first look at the PC version of the city-building strategy game at Kalypso's GamesCom booth.

Who's Making This Game: Haemimont is the team behind the well-received Celtic Kings: The Punic Wars and the poorly received Imperium Romanum. Kalypso is responsible for publishing duties.

What the Game Looks Like: Tropico 3 uses a top-down view, and from on high, your dictatorship feels like a living, breathing country. When you're not working your subjects to the bone, you can watch them working themselves to the bone. The game uses the same engine as Grand Ages: Rome, and we're told it should run on a machine with a 2.0GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GPU.

What There Is to Do: One of the major new features in Tropico 3 is the ability to create your own dictator from scratch, with plenty of control over his appearance, background, allegiance to the US and USSR, and whether he studied in Moscow or at Harvard, for instance. Another new feature allows you to share your saved data through the game's online community. Keeping true to the series, Tropico 3 will feature plenty of construction and management, and you can build plenty of structures, including construction offices, transportation facilities, farms, tourist attractions, and even institutes to establish the country as a tax haven. In total, there are 15 single-player missions to keep you occupied.

How the Game Is Played: As El Presidente, you have ultimate and unquestionable control over your country, including its physical properties. Before starting a new campaign, you can choose the size and shape of your island, as well as other details, such as the amount of vegetation and mineral deposits. Once you have a thriving nation, you can hold election speeches from your palace balcony in the hope of swaying public opinion. But if that doesn’t work, why not just rig the election instead?

There are plenty of other things you can tool around with too, such as tax rates, political edicts, prohibition, social security, and propaganda. You can also decide whether you want to oppress the people or try to win their favour. An almanac shows you the current state of the nation, including details on your popularity rating, economy, politics, and even the citizens in your watched list. There is a risk you'll be overthrown, and unlike real life where you might be able to go into hiding or flee the country, that is where the story ends. Before that happens, however, you can build a secret police building to assassinate political targets or, if you prefer the subtle approach, stage an unfortunate "accident" to get rid of them.

What They Say: " The game will attract fans of the Tropico series, as well as newcomers with state-of-the-art graphics. The game offers complex gameplay similar to the other titles in the series and a comprehensive multiplayer mode."

What We Say: Tropico 3 looks like it will offer some rewarding gameplay and possibly even offer an education on how to run a dictatorship. If you think you've got what it takes, you can find out this October when the game is released.

73 Comments

  • Abbasid123

    Posted Dec 4, 2009 6:15 pm PT

    It looks like a good game to purchase

  • McLarty

    Posted Oct 17, 2009 8:40 am PT

    i look forward to playing this game.. I played the first one on the PC years ago bur didnt really understand the concept of it.. But this version looks very attractive and humorous.

  • m1n1J

    Posted Oct 17, 2009 2:11 am PT

    omg!!!!1 Played the demo recently and I was absoloutely bowled over by how great it looked and how smooth it worked on my 9800GTX. The user interface is much more friendly and they kept the core gameplay, which works, absoloutely love this and I was very happy that it wasn't a let down ^__^

  • 98_Cadillac_98

    Posted Oct 6, 2009 8:58 am PT

    I've been playing it for about a week now, and it's uncanny how well they've updated it almost exactly from Tropico 1. It's like the same game, except my friends don't make fun of me for playing something with crappy graphics.

  • carthanne

    Posted Oct 2, 2009 2:20 pm PT

    I tried the demo and I`m glad they went back to the classic cold war theme I just wasn't digging that pirate stuff of course for fans of old I saw that you could don a pirate suit.

  • Joesocwork

    Posted Sep 29, 2009 7:38 pm PT

    I could have tried the more serious Cities XL first (and I will!), but this one looks sillier and just as fun. I'm eager to try the demo.

  • RLJSlick

    Posted Sep 29, 2009 10:41 am PT

    Game looks amazing, with some great details and animation. I can't wait to play the full game.

  • Rampagerabbit

    Posted Sep 29, 2009 6:51 am PT

    Can only say that this games rocks. Just like the first Tropico just with better graphics.
    I have been so lucky to get a hold of the full copy of the game.. If you like the other titles, then this a much buy. 9.5/10

  • salman06p0020

    Posted Sep 26, 2009 1:26 pm PT

    I loved the first game in the series, looking forward to play this.

  • Vasot

    Posted Sep 26, 2009 1:49 am PT

    The game is pretty cool. It deserves at least an 8.0 in my opinion

  • kn123

    Posted Sep 16, 2009 7:35 pm PT

    I'm downloading the demo now.I have played all the earlier games, and their great, but I'll have to see what this one is like.

  • chianh1305

    Posted Sep 14, 2009 10:25 pm PT

    I hav tried the demo,honestly the graphic looks better but the gameplay is worse compare with Tropico 1. Tropico 3 appeared to be less details than Tro 1.For example, in Tro1 you could see the farmers harvest food then carry it on their shoulder and bring it to the farm houses, in Tro 3, farmers just perform the action of harvesting food,after a time a whole field instantly become empty (so unreal). Another is about the building, in Tro 1, you need around 7-10 workers to construct a building,and b4 building it,they need to chop down trees to clear the area,everything looks real and really awesome.But in Tro 3, you just need 1-2 workers to construct a building,the trees is automatically chopped down (dissappear) when u put the building in any area that appear trees.
    I am really dissapointed that Tropico 3 make everything become less details and unreal. I m a big big fan of Tropico 1, i am not sure that i ll purchase and keep on playing tropico 3

  • bojangles_j

    Posted Sep 14, 2009 9:51 pm PT

    360?(yn)

  • tamer101

    Posted Sep 12, 2009 1:50 pm PT

    wooow nature and looks awsome

  • Gamer-1024

    Posted Sep 10, 2009 10:07 pm PT

    The images look nice. Being a Haemimont game though I will have to try the demo before I will buy it. Plus I don't really care to buy Tropico 3 then Tropico 3.5 and finally Tropico 3.99 like the whole Imperium Romanum thing where they put out glory to the roman empire, then imperium romanum then the last game, all essentially the same game with improvements on each one in reasonably close succession. The last game was nice though I will admit, but all told cost me close to $120.00 to buy all three versions. So I hope that it's Tropico 3 and that's it until a full expansion or Tropico 4 if there should be any expansions and or sequels in the future. I would have liked it better too if they would include a map editor but I've seen it on other sites where the devs say there will be no map editor with the game which is a usual Haemimont tactic

    Now, the other thing that I'm noticing is that the previews I've seen written up really aren't showing us any new gameplay, seems the same as the original Tropico with obviously much nicer and now full 3D graphics, I hope they have included some new gameplay else why bother spending 50 when I could play the same game in 2D called Tropico 1

  • darren90uk

    Posted Sep 5, 2009 4:14 pm PT

    Looks sweet!

  • RLJSlick

    Posted Sep 3, 2009 10:01 am PT

    I agree I can't wait for the demo. This is a management game like Simcity but its more of a god building game more like Age of Empire. Lots of fun great music.

  • mnmedic

    Posted Sep 2, 2009 3:20 pm PT

    Can't wait to try out the demo!

  • Mr_CrazyPants

    Posted Sep 1, 2009 3:45 pm PT

    Tropico is a construction and management simulation game so yes , you could say its like simcity but it has a lot more to it then just city building

  • oldart

    Posted Sep 1, 2009 3:11 pm PT

    I don't get it, I thought dictatorships were like, forever. . . It's that US federal government medaling in Tropico's afairs I'll bet. Hmm, early 50's you say. Maybe we could play both sides of the fence, get missles and guns from the USSR then declare war on the US, loose, then let those stupid Feds pump Billions into our econmy while we just sit back and enjoy Pura Vida the (Good Life)