Tropico (PC)

By PETER ELEY

(Herald rating: * * * * * )

Tropico could be billed as "SimCity meets Fidel Castro."

Forget the neat suburbs and democratically elected mayors of other city-building sims. The job specs for presidente of Tropico read: "Must be utterly ruthless and have good working knowledge of banana-republic politics. Serious facial hair an advantage."

The game unashamedly draws on SimCity and Roller Coaster Tycoon, but the political flavour gives it a definite niche.

As a newly installed dictator, you have to make your citizens happy. They start out as peasants, and you build tenements to house them, bars to lift their spirits and churches to save their souls.

This takes money, of course, and there are two roads to prosperity. You can lean towards socialist austerity, with factories, collective farms, and logging, or capitalism, and build beach resorts to lure the Yankee dollar, although certain social problems can result.

Depending on your chosen political path, you can arrest enemies or bribe them, burn books to appease the Church and intimidate intellectuals, or go cap-in-hand to the US and Russia.

The potential level of direct control over your citizens is huge, but you can opt for the easy life and put the game on autopilot.

That takes a lot of the fun out of Tropico, for the interaction between you as president and your subjects is fascinating.

They really do have minds of their own, and there's always something going on — people trading goods, buying food at the market, even going to church or the doctor. You get to feel that you really are responsible for them.

Now, pass me my medals and light this cigar ...

Mature 15+

peter_eley@nzherald.co.nz