There are plenty of simulation games out there - The Sims, SimCity, Tycoon whatever, Flight Simulators, and more. But one of the best is a Caribbean simulator, Tropico. What is it? What makes it different? Let me explain.
You are the new dictator of Tropico, a small island in the Caribbean. Using your dictactoral powers, you must build the island up, make money, become stinkin' rich, and then retire with a fat Swiss bank account.
It's not that easy, though. Before you can make money, you need workers. Workers need food, which requires farms. Workers also require entertainment, religion, and health care. If they don't get these, they emigrate, and eventually, your island is going to become an empty, ghost island. That is not good, is it, Presidente?
So you must build things to keep them happy. Then you can finally concentrate on the money. The game offers you a wide variety. If you want to strictly farm, build cash crops and live off them, although they won't get you far. You can mine, or cut down trees. Then, when you get enough money, you can build factories. But these require high-school educated workers, and ordering them from America gets too costly.
One of the things I personally like about the game is the buildings. It's not like in The Sims, where you slap something down and it's there, but it's not like in SimCity, where you don't know what you're building. Instead, you place the transparent outline of a building, and your construction workers go over, hammer it together, and you've got yourself a building. If you don't have enough construction workers, it doesn't get done.
Everything relies on something else in this game. People need food, but the farmers also need things. You need doctors, priests, teachers, soldiers, construction workers, and more. To make them happy and work their best, you need good houses, which require money. Money is made by your workers, but needs to be shipped out via a dock. You can also make money through tourism, but you need people to run that. It's all a big vicious circle.
Another small thing that I liked was the ability to change your citizens names. Why, you ask? Well, it's kind of fun to rename a family to make it just like yours. And since the citizens go through life like normal, you can see them grow up, get a job, get married, have kids, and eventually die. It even tells you what you die of! And something I like doing is using some of the cheats and making new people - the right amounts - and creating all our classmates. Then you see who marries who. You can do it with your family, friends, anything!
There are also the dreaded rebels, people who don't like your rule and decide to take matters into their own hands. If you let them build up, them will come after you . . . in force. And if your military is puny, you can kiss your island goodbye. Make America mad enough, and they'll attack you, and you have no chance against them.
Tropico is one of the best games I have ever played. Offering enough variety for anyone, it is a great game for anyone. Two thumbs up to El Presidente! And it has an expansion pack, Tropico: Paradise Island, which is a greaty addition for your tourism industry, among other things.
Tropico was created by PopTop Software and published by Gathering Developers. It runs on Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, and NT. Requirements are: a CD-ROM drive, 32 MB RAM, 200 MHZ CPU, and 820 MB of free disk space. I definitely recommend it.