Tropico 5 doesn’t deviate far from the series’ blueprint – real-time city-building on an initially low-tech, low-wealth Caribbean island, with you playing the role of a cartoonish dictator who’s as benign or malign as you care to be, now with a revamped campaign mode and added multiplayer.

I’ve spent a big chunk of this week with it, and have now left its sun-kissed beaches and mouldering tenements to bring you the following report. If it matters, I skipped Tropico 4 so can’t tell you anything about how it compares to that.> … [visit site to read more]

Just for the weekend, of course. Mr Zacny – who has a review coming up right after this article! – rather liked the fourth iteration of the colourful dictate ‘em up. You’ll be able to download and play the game on Steam tonight last night from 8pm GMT, and play it through the weekend. Should a purchase be aroused in your wallet, then there’s a 66% discount, too. So that’s pleasant. (And sort of appropriately timed.)

Yes, it seems to be real. Kalypso have sent word that the expansion for Tropico 4, which is called Modern Times, will features the possibility for enforced modernisation of your little republic, including a space programme. They explain: “El Presidente must modernise his island nation while battling sinister underground forces that threaten the future of Tropico itself in an extensive new single-player campaign.” That means fending off the collapse of capitalism, blocking your citizens’ access to the internet>, and other signs of the times. Modern Times is due out in March, but at £19.99 it seems a little pricey! Trailer below. (more…)

To my great disappointment, I am a benevolent dictator. The people of Tropico 4‘s do not fear the tread of the jackboot, but are instead smothered under the heavy yoke of first-rate entertainment options and lucrative employment opportunities. Even the communists and intellectuals have been yielded to the bourgeois hellscape I have created. There will be no revolution to televise.> (more…)