A lazy-sunday sofa game. Undemanding and easy but enjoyable nonetheless.
Having played both previous Tropico games I can say that tropico 3 is still very much tropico. It has the same charm and personality of the previous games. Unfortunately however, number three feels like the forgotten sibling of one and two with both pros and cons of both. The basic ability to click on any citizen on your island and see their needs, likes and preferences remains. You can see their name, their thoughts, house, job, satisfaction etc. Its quite cool. You also set wages, determine the crops farmed, fire, hire and micro-manage. In that respect, it is much the same and if you liked the previous games enough to even notice there is a new instalment, it might be worth picking up.
That said however, lets outline the pros and cons.
Starting with the latter, there are a number of issues with the game. Firstly, during my extensive hours of constructing metrololi after metropoli, i found that i could run almost every island in the same manner. The simple people of tropico always need the same buildings (ie church, clinic, school) in the same order to be content. There is also a generic way of generating income meaning that the begining of every level involves the same routine. Once this routine is complete, it is simply a matter of staying in power and ensuring you don't try to expand too fast.
Too fast brings me to the next point of the fact that the game is slow. I don't mean slow in that its boring, I mean that you can play the entire game on full speed setting without any issue and are sometimes forced to put the controller down and go make a cup of tea while your construction workers build your buildings. The buildings also lack in variety and while the campaign mode does a relatively good job of syphoning you new buildings, you unlock the lot pretty fast and are soon just building more and more of the same things. Once your economy gets running, its usually a matter of building everything your people need - then doing it again because you can and you still have 20 years left to win. Annoyingly, if your city grows too large, the game sloggs behind loading so many buildings and practically reverts the game to normal speed. The bigger you get, the more it slows down.
The interface and controls are fairly fluid. While games like this are often critisized on consoles, Tropico 3 is fine. Switching between build menus and choosing a building is very fast once you know what you are doing (bearing in mind the learning curve is quite long). The same can be said for issuing edicts to improve your population's living conditions. Its simple and easy. Unfortunately placing constructions are not so well done. Buildings that must be connected to roads often prove cumbersome and road construction is one of the worst I've seen in a city-sim. Trying to stretch a road from A to B will see it twist and bend in every which manner furthest from your desired route.
All things considered however, Tropico 3 is fun. While it is lacking in the quality of its predecessors, it is certainly much easier. The islands, though often small, are vibrant and colourful. The ocean rolls on the shores and the sound bytes flip in and out according to what part of the island you're focused on. It can look very good and a watching a sun set over your metropolis is a joy. While the buildings lack variety and it doesn't take long to learn to 'routine' of doing well, this leaves room for the more imaginative players who want to build and island from the ground up and design it exactly to their choosing. Campaign is relatively long with a good diversity in objectives. Meeting those objectives always follows the routine, however they do vary dramatically, as does weather, politics, and frequency of natural disasters. Replayability for the more dedicated players lies in sandbox and god mode which provides plenty of room for fun. The more hardcore players would probably find the game too slow and boring, however those seeking something to play while chatting on the phone or hanging with mates might want to pick it up. If a build sim is your thing and you don't have a PC, get Tropico 3. It isn't amazing and can't match the PC equivalents of today, but for an undemanding, lazy sunday sofa game you can't really go wrong. For something different and something simple, it matches.