MUSE LOG: Tropico - Mucho Macho    
 Tropico - Mucho Macho4 comments
picture7 Apr 2004 @ 17:06, by Tom Bombadil


Tropico - Mucho Macho challenges you to build up the economy of your own little tropical island—as either a benevolent leader or a ruthless dictator:



"There's a subtle, multilayered web of cause and effect in Tropico. If you don't keep enough priests in your church, a religious general might kick up a coup d'état. If you pay the farmers too little, your lucrative tobacco trade might crumble like a dried-out cigar. If you neglect to build a school, 10 years later you'll have to pay through the nose to hire engineers from overseas to staff your power plant.

In the end, your success primarily depends upon [the] people. You might be the presidente, but there are a hundred or more folks who drive the action on the island—people going about their business of sleeping, worshipping, getting checkups at the clinic, buying food from the market, and paying occasional visits to the cabaret. When amenities aren't available, they're unhappy and less likely to support you.

Different people have different priorities. Some people are concerned with crime, others with liberty. Some just want a nice house or a high-paying job. If they get upset enough, they'll vote against you in elections, publicly protest, flee to join the rebels, or maybe even take part in an uprising against your palace.
(...)
At its core, Tropico is just another city-building simulation that's reminiscent of many others before it. But the political wrapper that PopTop has built around the core of the game is sophisticated enough to appeal to all types of strategy game players. The game also has enough heart, soul, humor, and humanity to make it unique."

—Review by Tom Chick, Gamespot.com





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4 comments

7 Apr 2004 @ 18:06 by Giselli @69.33.46.10 : Mui macho (o muito macho) :-)
Nah! The way i played it, it was a laid back civ games, without the ususal standard baser responses, such as warfare. I love the carribean beat and you can start a scenario as “Evita” De Peron if you want to.  

7 Apr 2004 @ 18:29 by Aiden @69.33.46.10 : LOL
I was reading some of the reviews and I ran into that quote: "If W can get himself appointed President of the United States, then surely each of us should get at least one tiny Caribbean Island."

Remember, you can't fool all of the people all of the time but in Tropico you can arrest those who don’t agree with you. Do you want a military dictatorship, or a republic? Your choice:

"Zoom in to see what citizens are thinking and saying. You can watch the well-rendered figures go about life on the island, complaining about everything from food, to the work schedule to the government itself. If they offend you, arrest them and plunk them in jail. You can even hear the thoughts of the livestock, but don’t be surprised if a cow complains about the one she fell in love with getting lazy, fat and passing gas all day long. Zoom out and watch the island’s industry parallel an ant colony, with tiny scurrying figures going about their lives, unaware of the consequences rendered by the ‘eye in the sky.’ "  

7 Apr 2004 @ 19:16 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Well, hmmm...
Those are exactly the kind of games that make me feel like running away and living off the grid.
Interesting premise though. Caricatural as it may be, it still makes a nice meditation on the current state of things on planet earth and some of the paragdims at work. It 'd be nice if someone could come up with a game—some sort of a grand scale online simulation—that would allow to tweak the system and explore new ways of doing things.  

7 Apr 2004 @ 19:34 by bombadil : I don't know,
maybe this is it, Hanae.  

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