It’s not everyday that you can become a dictator of your own island nation, but with Tropico 3, you’ll be silencing your critics in no time.  Tropico 3 is a city-building simulation with some similarities to the the SimCity series.  Tropico is not, however, a SimCity clone.

You begin by choosing your “El Presidente,” the leader of your Caribbean island nation. You can choose amongst several real-life dictators like Fidel Castro and Evita Peron, or you can create your own leader, choosing your own strengths and weaknesses.  The game begins in the early 1950’s and can last as long as 2000. Will you be a CIA installed leader to set up a banana republic, or a USSR friendly commie?  Each civic decision you make affects relations with the US and the USSR.  Either way, El Presidente finds himself to be a pawn in the Cold War.

The game has three layers, one of which is city building, another is resource management, the other is civics.  The seemingly endless combinations of choices make each game unique and interesting. The city building is the most similar to SimCity, building infrastructure and buildings your people request.  As El Presidente, you’ll be choosing where every building and road is placed, creating your version of a tropical paradise.

 Each island has different resources to exploit, leading to decisions for the short term (like mining) and long term (building a tourism industry). There are many ways to make money, from cigar factories to extorting your own people.  Whether the money coming in goes to the people or to your Swiss bank account, is entirely up to you.

The civic choices for me are the most interesting part of Tropico 3.  Some decisions are geared domestically, and others are for international relations.  Decisions you make will please either the US or the USSR, but seldom both.  Make one angry enough and you may find your island surrounded by their warships.  Keep it up and you will be overthrown by one of the super-powers, or please them and they’ll send you aid money. The population is divided into groups, and balancing their support can become a real challenge.  Nationalists will demand an immigration ban, which will upset the Intellectuals.  Building cabarets and night clubs will erode the support of the Religious faction.  Make any faction angry enough and its members will start to become rebels.  You can appease the factions, assassinate their leaders, throw them in jail, or even bribe them.  How you deal with the problem is totally up to you. Regardless of how you deal with the problems, the people will demand elections.  Whether its a clean, fair election is for you to decide.

Tropico 3 is much more than a Fidel Castro simulator, but that is the easiest way to sum it up.  As El Presidente, your mandate can be as fair or as hard-line as you want.  You can be democratic, socialist, fascist, communist, or any hybrid in between.  And if you’re one of those people that thinks socialism, communism, and fascism are the same,  play this game and you may learn the difference.  Ultimately, Tropico 3 is a good game with enough variety and challenge to keep the player coming back for more.

About the author: Kevin “Mello Joe” Mercer is a former radio personality and a lifelong gamer. You can find him on Xbox Live and Playstation Network, Gamertag: Mellojoe. View the world as he sees it at www.youtube.com/user/mellojoe. www.myspace.com/charlesk