Graphics and Sound

Third World Graphics

Tropico is a standard Sim game, and like its contemporaries uses traditional sprite-based 2D graphics. A few things are rendered in 3D (planes, boats) but everything else, from the buildings to trees to the people, are 2D. Tropico is an example of how games can look great without being cutting-edge.

One luxury game developers have with 2D graphics is that they can pile on as much detail as they like. Poptop took great care to ensure that Tropico is a visual treat. Buildings are all in Caribbean style - low cost architecture and sea-battered. You can see evidence of island life in them as well, from laundry hangers to barbed wire on guard posts. The individual citizens of Tropico are very detailed as well. A person's clothes reflect their job: construction workers have overalls and hardhats, Fisherman carry fishing poles, and you can guess what Cabaret dancers look like. You can even see iron girders and bricks among the rubble amidst dilapidated and abandoned buildings

Fountains make shanty

El Presidente's estate

Your view is always 3/4 top down, but you can rotate the map at 90 degree increments. This is nice since buildings, trees, and hills tend to block your view. You can also zoom out to see the entire island, and zoom in to see the cargo stacked up at docks. Everything scales nicely, so it's easy to see where things are when you zoom out.

Another point of interest is the attention paid to character animation. When people are outside working you can see everything they do. Lumberjacks chop down trees, construction workers level ground, and teamsters haul cargo. When and how much people work is easy to see - a big advantage that helps balance gameplay (more on that later). Airplanes circle, land, and taxi before passengers are let off. If you stare long enough you can even see the plants grow.

Cheap housing

The money maker: Cigar factory

Mambo King

One thing that stands out in Tropico is the music; it's fantastic, sporting a mix of Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, Salsa, and Latin Jazz. This is one of the only games where I turn up the music and turn down the sound effects. The music is fun, upbeat, and adds to the atmosphere of living on a Caribbean island. It may even make you get up and dance. GOD should have thrown in the soundtrack CD with the game, it would have been a great "value-add" (although BestBuy has/had a deal where you get the soundtrack and extra scenarios). I do have to say that I'm a fan of this type of music in general (I've played sax and drums for 13 years), so my opinion may be different than the average gamer.

Sound effects and voice acting are more than adequate. The voice you hear the most is that of your unnamed advisor, who speaks with a Latin-American accent (more of a Cuban/Spanish accent than a Jamaican/English accent). He sounds like the dude from the old 7UP commercials (the "uncola" ones).

Tropico U

Tobacco farms

The rest of the sound effects are done well. They aren't very memorable, but most importantly, they don't get annoying after hours of play. Playing a Sim game tends to expose you to many repetitive sounds, and even the most innocuous samples can become maddening after a while. Luckily Tropico manages to escape this.