Tropico seemed like a good absorbing game when I first played it. It's a 'builder' game, broadly similar to Sim City and the Caesar/Pharaoh series of games. You build houses, hospitals, farms, and industrial buildings on a small island. If you do it well, the people like you, the population increases, your cash increases, and you can build bigger stuff.

The problem, is that having finished one island, I adjusted the settings and started another, and quickly found that it was all exactly the same as my first game! Compared to a similar game such as Pharaoh, Tropico has far fewer choices of building, and it's economic model is far too simple. After one game, lasting maybe 3 evenings, I'd seen just about everything Tropico could offer.

Like Sim City, a mission in Tropico has no real goal other than to build for the time limit. Sim City provides many more variations though, and even after half a dozen games, you'll still find out something new. In Tropico you're always on a tiny island, I think the game world is just too small!

I must comment on the excellent music though. It's as good as any music I've ever heard in a game. After getting hooked on the Cuban/Latin soundtrack to Tropico, I've started listening to Latin music.

Overall, I could only recommend Tropico to someone who wants a really laid-back, non challenging type of game.

Tropico is a challenging management game where you run an island in the Carribean but can easily be chucked out if you make the wrong moves. It can become quite hard depending on the pregame scenario you set (e.g amount of plants, minerals, initial population, leader's qualities, etc.) and the scenario that gets set during the game (e.g amount of remaining funds, popularity of civilians and military, etc.).

The game is generally "a make your own objectives up" game like Simcity 4. This quality of the game could be good or bad, depending on you. This quality is good though because if it was not for this quality then it would feel unrealistic and would feel like you're not a ruler.

"Tropico" has good graphics and it was only made in 2001 (I think) so it is not that old, but you will find it a low price if you do. I suggest checking the "Take advantage" company's website if you want to find "Tropico" as this was the company that sold it in the shop that I bought it from.

"Tropico" is a good game for people who are good at ruling games and/or making money games. It runs on XP by the way.

Tropico is a very addictive game. Particularly if you're a would-be megalomaniac! Be Fidel Castro or Papadoc Duvalier and run your own Caribbean island from 1950 however you please. You can set your own character qualities but must also set flaws. You can choose the way you came to power which affects the way people in your country view you, it also can affect your foreign relations with USSR and the US. The game is multi-layered you can play your own scenarios or the pre-set ones that give you a goal to aim for. This is one of those strategy games that leads to you looking at the clock to find it's 5am and you haven't slept yet. Available for around £25-30 and well worth it as it would take years to exhaust all the game possibilities.