Yeah when I saw Voodoo Pizzaman as one of the 'preset politician' I died a little inside.
Yeah. Also, the avatar is a gimmicky idea, but OK, why not. The problem is that the implementation is completely retarded. OK, you've got your Fidel costume, your Pinochet/Somoza unifom, your Che beret. So far so good. But honestly, an Elvis suit? A Pirate suit? A Zorro suit? What the fuck, Haemimont? They could at least have focused on giving you a more complete set of appearances that had some bearing on real-world Caribbean/Latin American politics rather than making half of the options pure derp. For all their cringeworthy attempts at incorporating modern pop culture references, they didn't even include
Chavez or
Evo Morales options, to name a few of the most "colorful" presidents in the region. And if they
really wanted full-blown ridiculous, they could have gone for one of the many
real world examples of grotesque thirdworldian leaders before making a Jack Sparrow costume.
As you delve deeper into the game, it slowly dawns on you that Haemimont/Kalypso have no interest in the setting and are, in fact, destroying the IP they purchased with every single deviation they attempt from the original formula. As you watch your perfectly paved Autobahns swarm with legions of immaculate Yank Tanks driven by people who live in a shack made from five sheets of corrugated iron and a tractor tyre, you either accept the fact that this is actually a shovelware game made for German city sim fanboys disguised as Tropico, or go insane from the contradictions. The art direction is bland, uninspired, and less functional than in T1 (for instance, different workers had distinct and unique silouhettes in T1, allowing you to identify them at a glance. In T3 and 4, they all look alike). The difficulty is ridiculously easy, to the point that I attempted to deliberately crash my island into the ground, only to fail tragically. No large-scale revolts, no insurgencies I couldn't deal with, nothing. The people just refused to kick out El Prez. You can keep everyone happy, without any contradictions or clashes of interests. The Left and the Right adore you equally -- you spend most of your games with 100 or near-100 approval ratings from the commies and the capitalists alike. You never feel like you need to hang on to power, or that there is, in fact, any kind of meaningful opposition to you.
Tropico 1 was far from a perfect game, but it deserved a good successor that improved significantly on its concept and mechanics while maintaining its original flair. Instead we find ourselves waiting for further rape under the form of T5, which, judging by the previews, will complete the task of removing every last scrap of what made Tropico great.
