Tropico 5

If you have windows 10 avoid it, the game has been broken for months without proper acknowledgement from devs.

TL;DR: A city builder that gives an interesting twist on the classic genre. It's the colonial era. Your only job is to keep the crown off your back. But the crown keeps nagging. Build this building it says. Give me money it says. You're getting pretty fed up with all of the complaints when a rebel leader approaches you. "We can be free," she says, "Just build a library and raise a small army, then we declare independence." You pen a small constitution on the ideals of democracy. It's WW2. Both sides are demanding all sorts of things, iron, cigars, rum. You know that some people care a great deal about who wins the war, but you can't be bothered. Money is flowing and your people couldn't be happier. It's the cold war. The communist party on the island isn't happy about your lack of housing. The environmentalists are whining your mining operations. The religious want another church. But, you have a factory to complete. After all, that furniture won't build itself! So you tell them to hold on a minute, you'll get to their demands. But you don't have a minute, the election is next month and your approval rating is in the toilet. So you say to yourself, just this once and declare martial law. It's the modern era. Your people haven't voted since the Berlin Wall fell, but you know what's best for them. Liberty? Housing? Health care? All your people need are a strong police force and good profits flowing into Tropico. Of course, a little in the Swiss Bank account couldn't hurt either... In Tropico, I never found myself micromanaging, though I always could as there were options like "Denounce someone you don't like" and "Fire this ONE guy from his job." However, the game is content to let you sit back and plan the bigger things. The dictator twist elevates this game from another city builder into a true gem. A few strange bugs that keep the game from being winnable at times stop this game from a perfect score, but they are rare and overall the game is a load of fun.

Previous issues with the audio crashing game have been resolved as of version 1.11 - 29 September 2020, game is back to all its glory. Best part is, GOG reached out to let us know. As far as city building management games go, Tropico is one of the best. Not as complex as the Anno, and its versions have managed to progress with slight iterations rather than overhauls. If you grew up playing the Settlers, SimCity, enjoy games like the Anno series or just always wanted to be your own tropical island dictator...well..what are you waiting for El Presidente?

As of the date of this review the game works fine on Windows 10. Good job GOG! Now as for the game itself it is a very nice Tropico game, the multiplayer and coop aspects are fun. The music department is not bad but in my oppinion the music in Tropico 4 was better. Gameplay wise is easy to pick up and quite fun to roleplay being Fidel Castro. Personally I prefer Tropico 4, however, now that the compatibility issues are fixed this game deserves a second chance.

If you love the Tropico games, you will get frustrated and angry, when pirates and rebels turn your city to smoking ruins. Forget economy, you are forced to put towers and armybases everywhere, because trouble can (and will) span randomly in your city. If I wanted war, I would play Empire - Total War. Sad.