The best part about playing a game of Tropico is that you get to be really, really mean. Not just mean, but a real bastard—someone that inspires phlegm to consistently be propelled in your direction. I have no qualms about it. After all, the game is a dictatorship simulator, and where is the fun in being a nice dictator? Sure there were all these options in the original to have things like free elections, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. I say lock up all the Tropicans and throw away the key (that is of course unless they are working in one of my many sweatshops).
This brings up one of the original’s game weaknesses—you couldn’t be mean enough. A few design choices really put a damper on my virtual cruelty. Luckily, Tropico: Paradise Island remedies a number of these. But first, if anyone needs a summation of the original’s gameplay—and a good bop on the head for not buying it—than you can check out my original review. Now, while they’re off getting acquainted, let’s take a look at what Paradise Island adds to the Tropico experience.
First let me say that the one of the biggest complaints about the original Tropico has been addressed. Specifically, the time it took to build structures. Construction is now much faster, and in another helpful design change, you now get your money back for cancelled building projects. As it explains in the manual, your engineers have realized that building plans are not that expensive after all.
As I mentioned, the expansion’s best feature is that it lets you be a lot more oppressive. This is accomplished through several avenues. For one, there are a bunch of new edicts and buildings that simply make it easier to avoid getting booted off the island. Remember the annoying coups that plagued your evil empire? Paradise Island adds an army base—an ingenious locale that fulfills your soldier’s living and entertainment needs, thus making them more loyal. In one game I ruled for seventy years and only had a few minor coups, and that was because I didn’t have enough farms (I have to feed them too? Ugh). Colonial Forts, a new building, can appear randomly on maps, and with a little remodeling in the basement you have an instant dungeon. Use the new capture edict to send your most despised enemies down there for a few years and they’ll come out squinting and thinking a little differently about voicing their opinion.
Two additional edicts that affect your army are military modernization, which makes them more efficient and increases the benefits of the army base, and conscription, which allows uneducated workers to become a part of your army. These make it much easier to maintain a large army to keep peace in the streets. That is assuming you’re staying in power by force. To make that more of a reality, elections are now much easier to deal with. For one, you can now see the amount of support for you and your opponent before the election. If you go through with holding them and things start to go downhill, the martial law edict now stops an election cold. In addition, assassinating or jailing an opponent will make the more uneducated Tropicans change their opinion, lest your soldiers visit them in the night. Two new structures can also help to influence your people. El Presidente’s childhood home will increase any visiting Tropican’s respect for you, and the new movie theatre can show your home movies—look how cute the Presidente was—ten more years! Social Security, though expensive, makes all Tropicans respect you a bit more, making it a wise, though benevolent and thus unappealing, choice.
Tropico, however, was never just about your oppressing your people. Eventually you had to give them some rights or you simply wouldn’t be able to venture into the more profitable enterprises. Tourism, perhaps the greatest money-maker in the game if handled correctly, gets a huge boost in Paradise Island. For one, there are two new tourists. The Eco-Tourists enjoy the historic and cultural attractions, while the Spring Break Tourists will fill up your pubs and other drinking establishments very quickly, but may riot. Two edicts, Spring Break Package and World Geographic Special, boosts your tourism rating tremendously, making tourism a much more profitable and attractive enterprise. In addition there are a host of new tourist attractions, such as a nature preserve, tennis court, duty-free shop, marina, and miniature golf, from which to gain revenues.
To make games more interesting, Paradise Island throws in a few features to make things less predictable. Now there is a chance of a random event occurring each month. Storms, a new addition, are particularly brutal and can wipe out many of your smaller structures. Just wait until the first time El Nino levels thousands of dollars worth of investment. In a show of true international camaraderie, however, you do receive some funds to rebuild. For those of you that depended on alliances with either the United States or Russia, those countries can now make certain demands, so think twice.
There are a few other additions I have not yet mentioned, such as the furniture factory and a few new presidential attributes, but let me get to the aesthetic additions because personality is so vital to the Tropico experience. While the graphics remain the same, all of the new additions blend seamlessly and have plenty of character. I was especially amused when “Vive el Presidente!” resonated from loudspeakers atop my childhood home. We have also been lucky enough to have been graced with a selection of new music tracks from the original songwriters. Once again, the music is good enough to warrant a purchase of the soundtrack.
While I’m more of a fan of a freeform game, for those of you that enjoyed Tropico’s sparse collection of scenarios, Paradise Island adds over twenty new ones. There is a nice mix of military and economic based scenarios, and a few are particularly amusing. One has you trying to get people off your island while at the same making a ton of money in order to make for a dinosaur park (I can see it now…Tropico: Reptile Rumba).
Expansions are hard to write reviews for because they are not new experiences that you can simply praise or tell people to avoid. One’s personal enjoyment of the expansion is going to depend on how devoted they were to the original. Tropico is one of the few games that I continually find myself going back to, so the expansion was definitely welcome. To those of you that only played the original casually I have to ask why. If it was because of a few of the game’s admitted flaws, then I would say to give Paradise Island a try, as it really enhances the experience and fixes many of them. To those of you that have never played Tropico, I advise you to pick up the new Mucho Macho Edition, which is the original and the expansion combined, and see what you’ve been missing.
I simply can’t wait until Tropico II: Pirate Cove is released. In the meantime I’ll be living it up on Paradise Island in one of the many fine roach-infested tenements.
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Reviewed by Anthony Micari.
