Tropico 3

When you're tired of FPS action, bored of another game of Fifa and can't be bothered to load up another fantasy RPG, it's good to know some studios are still churning out games like Tropico 3.

Blending a mixture of Sim City building juggling, with economic management and political intrigue, I was surprised to see how well this game works with the 360 controller. The menus are easy to navigate, and the shortcuts are simple.

The graphics are gorgeous for a strategy game, from sunsets over your hilltop pineapple farm, to American Mushroom clouds on the horizon everything looks sharp and crisp.

The sound too is fun, with a well voice acted radio DJ giving you hints and tips and some nice latino/carribbean grooves.

So whether you decide to be a man of the people - taking the yankee dollar, democracy, fair elections and tourism route; or be a total maniac, with secret police, the ability to make political enemies 'disappear', bribery and wiretapping, this game has something for you.

Highly recommended - 4 Stars

While I have not played the previous installments of the game, which I imagine must have followed a similar pattern, I foud the game excellent - highly entertaining for the casual player looking for a bit of fun but still offering sufficient complexity for the micro-manager amongst aspiring dictators.

The game offers three basic modes, the campaign mode with 15 prescribed scenarios that one goes through, the sandbox mode, where one can either play on a randomly generated or real map of a Carribean island and finally one can go for a custom generated challenge.

In terms of gameplay these cover pretty much all the spectrum of needs a player is likely to throw at the game - from a strategic perspective, where one plays fast and relatively lassiez faire but derives quick kicks (think Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Complete (PC DVD)), to when zoomed in sufficiently and the mood takes you going down the streets of your newly ill begotten island and chatting to its (well depending on you really) opressed masses (something few strategy games offer).

All in all I find it perhaps unspectacular in terms of the game engine or the execution but fantastic fun to play. In some ways it is to more serious state building simulation games what a Nintendo Wii is to a Sony Playstation 3 - not as polished in every last detail but set out to deliver plenty of thrills and to do so pretty quickly, with little familiarisation necessary (and the tutorial does all that).

I also think the graphics work really nicely, especially when in high zoom mode and the music and occasional quote from your contemporary dictatorial buddies set up a great atmosphere - the only thing missing is the number of that Swiss bank account where all those ill-gotten gains have been stashed away.

The Tropico series has been a popular city-building simulation with various PC gamers over the past few years, however is now taking its first trip in next-generation console gaming. With numerous attempts at this genre being let down by the basic control system the Xbox delivers, can it change all that and make itself the best city-building simulation out there? We find out...

Tropico 3 involves you running one of 14 various Caribbean islands. You can choose from around 20 pre-made presidents or make your own, with unique traits to share to your newly-ruled country. The tutorial gets you to grips with the basics of the game, including moving characters, buying buildings and managing unlawful citizens, however you need to progress through Career mode to get more knowledge on running a country. Of course, if you are feeling really confident, you can try Sandbox mode which gives you complete control over every single aspect, but unfortunately gives you no pointers or directions to assist your building adventure. In fact, Sandbox mode is in some ways more challenging than the last level of Career mode!

Over the course of me playing Career mode, and Sandbox mode, I got offered lots of cool offers including meeting the Queen. You can accept, negotiate or oppose these offers. If you accept, you have to spend a lot of money but reap some good rewards. If you negotiate, this means you are open to criticism if the Queen came and you had not spent enough money, or time, on her. Or you could alternatively try and come up with a cost-cutting solution, and finally oppose which allows you reject it, leaving everything the way it was before and no-one will ever know. These offers really spice up the games interface, and usually come with benefits, such as cash rewards or respect awards.

The controls are surprisingly easy to get used to. Hold down Y to get a list of buildings you can build, or what you need to build them, or press RT to select your character, financial status, or an event which should occur to change your country. To move yourself around, use the LTS and to zoom in and out, and rotate around, move RTS. It has got to be the one of the easiest, most thought out, control systems implanted into a strategy game for a long time.

The graphics are actually quite good for the sort of game. As you zoom in, you can see people with different expressions walking around in different ways, and you can see flags waving on buildings, and builders constructing objects. It is all nice detail, but if you do not like the 360 degree camera, you can always go back to The Sims 1 era camera which can actually help with the rotation of buildings at least. However, there is a flaw with having either a small screen or a standard-def TV, the HUD is huge, takes up half the page, but the text is tiny, it will take a long time to read what it says. This isn't helpful when you go and spend $8000 on an object because you thought you had that money, just to discover you only had $3000. Not helpful.

The soundtrack does a get a tad-repetitive, with the whole `I live on the Caribbean' theme going round and round in your head. Sometimes the music is relevant to an event, i.e. a barbeque beach party, but other times when a fight is going on, with fire, flames and the like going on, the music is still a tad too cherry. Also, the voiceovers are hard to understand, not because of the accent, but because the backing music overrules what they say. Sometimes, and probably a glitch on my side, voiceovers lap each other quite easily, which is a bit upsetting.

As mentioned earlier, there are a few flaws in the process. For example, it is incredibly challenging throughout the whole game, with lots of stuff happening at one time, and not being able to control it. Couple this with the overriding each-other voiceovers and even more confusion can occur. Also, if you have a normal-small- standard-def TV you will encounter some graphical issues. Apart from these minor omissions, there is nothing really wrong with the title, it is a fun, enjoyable city-building simulator, with good music and a flexible control system. A silent title it may be, but a great one nevertheless!