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Another hit from the makers of Tropico and Stronghold

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 81 / 84
Date: May 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing Tropico 2 for two days now and find it very enjoyable. It is another game that you'll spend many happy hours playing, staying up well past 3am in the morning. The other reviews I have read so far are fair and right on the money
though.

Summary: Wonderful game! BUT! This game contains some possibly distasteful content as you can expect from a game about Pirates, so if you are a parent or someone of a more sensitive disposition, you might want to demo this or watch a friend play it before you decide to buy.

Some Praise:

1. Do you know how many games I've bought that don't even work out of the box or crash to desktop every five minutes? Well, don't worry about that here. GODgames and their associates are _wonderful_ in releasing games that are so refeshingly free of game-crashing bugs that it can spoil a gamer. I am yet to have Tropico 2 crash to desktop or even have a fatal bug of any kind. I am having some sort of problem with my cursor but it seems to be a problem with my video card (compatibility issue) but that's about it.

2. Wenches! I mean, women! I mean, you can now play and hire female characters. My girlfriend was glad to see this. I know there were probably all of three female pirates in all the 17th century, but after Stronghold (which didn't even have females voicing the females), its nice to have women around other than in the wenching houses. Arg.

3. All in all, the game is very enjoyable. The parts all fit together seemlessly. The engine is time proven and works well, it does what its advertised to do.

Some Criticisms:

1. The game really should have been rated "Mature" instead of Teen. There are some rather adult content in the game in the suggestive area. Its rather disturbing to click on a 'wench' at work in her 'place of business' and hear her plead and cry out "let me go!". The comments they think in their head are often adult and somewhat disturbing, although they tried to make them humorous. Not a game to play if you are a sensitive person who finds things that Pirates may or may not do offensive.

2. The music is not as good as Tropico 1. Then again, the music in Tropico 1 was award winning and I still listen to the soundtrack CD in my car to this day. Pirate Cove's music is functional and passible, and there's at least one tune that I enjoy, but mostly it just doesn't seem to catch the 'pirate' theme for me. Mostly its a sort of calypso/spiritual backbeat with french or spanish lyrics. I haven't even heard one hornpipe! There was an ancient game called "Colonization" by Sid Meyer set in the same time period. Although incredibly dated by our standards, the midi music in it was much more of what I was expecting in Tropico 2, not some strange dirges that almost stray into Spring Break nightclub.

3. Lastly, just a personal quibble: I would have loved to be able to control my ships in battle. As it is, you play the part of Admiral Doenetz, sending your U-boats out to prey on merchant shipping, and all you get to do is tell them what to do, where to go, then sit on pins and needles hoping they come back alive. (Sorry, played too many WW2 games! But hey, you can even 'wolfpack' your ships in Tropico 2, if you send more than 1 to a sector, they'll help each other in battle.) I would have liked to have had some sort of battle mode where you could actually direct and lead your ships in battle (ala 'Ancient Art of War at Sea' or those simular naval wargames).

4. In 'sandbox' mode, your ships don't seem to find prey as often as they do in the Campaign mode. This can really make an 'easy' game in sandbox much harder than an easy game in Campaign (where more encounters are probably scripted).

Good but not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: May 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

What makes a game enjoyable to me is the open-ended factor. I rarely, if ever, buy a game that is strictly mission & end-game based. That's why I enjoyed Tropico so much. It was diverse & enjoyable.

Tropico 2 is different. The sandbox mode gets boring relatively quickly & my interest has waned in it. It lacks the immersive quality that Tropico had. It was like Tropico Sims. You could watch your family expand & settle down into their homes to live out their lives. That quality isn't really available in Tropico 2. Your pirates run around & do the same things over & over. Same with your captives. The gameplay has always felt a bit shallow to me.

However it is enjoyable - you do get wrapped up in island production & the like. The lewd aspect isn't offensively done & I sincerely doubt anyone's kids will suddenly go & build a wenching hut instead of a treehouse. That's just me though.

Overall I give it 4 stars. The music is great, the graphics are good, the interface is easy to learn. It will keep you entertained for awhile.

If the demo is anything to go by...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: February 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun.

I enjoyed the original Tropico and the expansion. This game is simpler, easier to get into, though the Demo does not let you know everything you will be able to do in the full game.

It's not suitable for younger kids, however, as the theme is more Piratey than Pirates of the Carribean (though that used to be a bit more risque, itself). Wenching and lynching are part of the game, and pirates like anarchy, which is provided by sordid amusements. Very appropriate for the time period and topic, but it still limits the kids who ought to be playing it.

Try the Demo (warning it's 130 megabytes so no dial-up), it's the best way to find out if you agree with me.

Better than the original Tropico!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 23
Date: December 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I had a lot of fun playing the original Tropico, but I found Tropico 2 to be a LOT more fun to play! Maybe it's because I started playing it around the same time Pirates of the Carribean came out (yo-ho!), so I was in a pirate-y mood.

The controls are basically the same as in the original, as are the graphics. The difference is, that in this game you are playing a pirate island instead of a dictator on a regular caribbean island. Your job is to keep your pirates happy, who cares about the minions who work on the island! You have to make sure there's enough places for them to drink, gamble, wench, and feast in order to keep them happy! One more annoying feature is that each pirate wants his own house. This isn't so bad when you only have a few pirates - but when you get a HUGE amount of pirates, those houses take up a lot of space!

One of my favorite new features in Tropico 2 is the pirate ships! You have your shipyard build a ship, then you send your pirates out looting. I wish there was more control over the ships when they are actually looting - but oh well. As it is now, you send it out and it does its thing while you continue to manage the island. It does keep a log of what's going on for you to look at - but you basically have zero control once it leaves the dock. Not a big deal, I just think if they did an expansion that would be a nice addition.

The game itself ran well on my machine, I never had crashing problems. It's a great game, well worth the price!! I HIGHLY recommend it!

Not as good as Tropico, but still pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: April 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ok, maybe I set my standards too high. The first Tropico was pure magic. Great graphics, great gameplay, and most of all, great music. Amazing music. I was enthralled. Paradise Island, the expansion to Tropico, was great too. I've wasted away endless hours trying my darndest to get my Tropicans to go to college and get real jobs at the Nature Preserve or at the Electrical Plant.

Tropico 2 has much of the graphics and gameplay style that I loved so much about the first Tropico. But, there are a few differences that I think detract from Tropico 2.

First, I really liked that, in Tropico, your economy was self-sufficient to a certain extent. You zoned farms, furniture factories, and hotels, and your Tropicans did the rest. In Tropico 2, however, you have to personally go and tell your ships what kinds of missions to employ and where to sail. I admittedly haven't encountered this problem yet, but I suspect that once you have lots and lots of ships, this could get burdensome.

Second, I find the interface slightly less palpable than the original Tropico. Your information source, the Island Log, has lots of information, but is difficult to navigate and doesn't have an alphabetical index. The individual pirate screens don't have an indicator of whether the pirate supports you, and I can't seem to figure out how to access my pirate support graph from the main screen. I either have to wait until the scale appears or access the Island Log, which I find somewhat overwhelming.

Still, this is a good game. If you loved the first Tropico, you'll undoubtedly like this one. The music isn't as good, but Tropico was hard to follow on that score, pun intended. My first impression of Tropico 2 is that it was a great idea that may be hampered by infomration and micro-management overload, but who knows. I may be shivering my timbers yet as I play it more and more.

If you liked Tropico I RUN Don't walk to buy this one

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: May 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

How can anyone like Tropico I over Tropico II? Well in Tropico I you managed EVERY aspect of your citizens' lives. Each of them needed a house(Tenements would not do the job at higher difficulty levels) a job, access to religious facilities, healthcare, entertainment, liberty, safety,food etc. etc. Problem was the economy did not expand properly. Your people demand ever increasing wages but your economy cannot be ever increasing. At higher difficulty levels you have to pay your people the maximum wage rate after like 50-100 years to keep them in line. In fact the Caribbean region wage increase is pure garbage. Problem becomes when you have a limited amount of Freight ships coming in and tourist, it just gets boring too fast. The most idiotic aspect is when you hire a foreign worker and they come in and JOIN A REBELLION AGAINST YOU! Or they emigrate off the island. Demographically it is a disaster because people marry have children they grow up and need jobs as well and need housing etc... It is not well controlled and just too much micromanagement.

Why is Tropico II better? Nobody EVER asks for a wage increase period. Half your population does not get paid(capitves work 4 free hehe...) No babies, no families, just pure fun.

Here is a tip: Captive rebellion and escape are not really serious problems. WHY? Because you can "press gang"( turn into a pirate) all unskilled captives. Yep even the ones that are escaping... Furthermore, if you have pirates that are unhappy you can ALMOST ALWAYS prevent a coup by upsetting the balance of power- just create more pirates. All pirates that are brought into life by virtues of "press gang" start out as super happy. That is a temporary measure of course but sometimes you need more time.

Another tip, get UPSCALE eastblishments ASAP because your captains will quickly become enraged with anything less. And when they are enraged they always kill somebody because they cant lose a dueling match. They can also "kill" a "skeleton" which makes no sense but the game still allows it.

The game's production/distribution is slightly different. There are no teamsters, each building that takes an input has a hauler sometimes 2(dock) which creates problems if there is more than one imput. For example. I had a case where I had a papaya farm with an output of 750 and a bakery low on papayas. Certainly the game's code needs to be improved to allow the delivery of the most amount of supplies. There is alot more to this game but this is a review not a strategy guide afterall.

The game is MUCH superior to Tropico I although the passion subsides rather quickly...

Starts out fun, gets old, then back to fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love this game! It is such a blast to play. It's exciting, challenging (unless you want it easy, 'cause you can certainly do sandbox mode), and fun. If you like the original Tropico, you'll like Tropico 2. However if you are looking for a really challenging game, Tropico 2 may not be your best choice. While it can be a challenge, it's pretty easy- especially compared to Tropico. (This is excluding sandbox modes.) I also agree with the people who say the game gets old, but, honestly, what game doesn't??? Fortunately, unlike many games, if you take a break from Tropico 2 for a little while, the game will be just as fun when you come back as when you first started playing. Maybe more, you actually know what you are doing when you come back.

This is so fun, it's criminal! Oh, yeah, that's the point..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I absolutely love this game. It's pure hedonistic, escapist fun with all of the non-pc components to make a person feel just a little -deliciously- wicked while playing it. I was impressed by the obvious research and effort the creators put into the game. As a bit of a pirate history enthusiast, it's great to vicariously loot, plunder, wench, booze it up, and fight right here in the comfort of home! Some of the gameplay might be overly simple for serious gamers, but I like to play for fun only and this fits the ticket- nothing too mindbending. It's a little thrill every time one of my ships sets sail. Also...as a female I can say I didn't find the wenches offensive at all. Again, it's historically accurate. As a part-time parent, I'd rate it definately PG-13, but my stepkids love it too and realize that it's a game/story about pirates, not a lifestyle choice suggestion.

Crashes constantly

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I had to call tech support to even get this game to install on my machine. It turns out that if you have a hard drive named "Data" the game will not run. Who would have thunk? So, I renamed my hard drive and the game works ok, but it crashes about every 15 minutes, so get ready to save your game alot. Otherwise, its pretty fun. Its like sim city for pirates. I can see how it would get pretty repetitive after youve played it a few times.

Different the Tropico 1

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game thinking it was going to be like the original Tropico, it isn't. Not a lot is the same between the two, but it is still quite fun. I like this game. There are a ton of missions that are fun to play. The single maps have a broad range of difficulty, but the game play is pretty similar. I liked the first Tropico better, but this still a pretty good game.

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