Tropico 4 is a lot like Tropico 3 (which was a lot like its predecessors as well) — so if you’re looking for an innovative city-building experience, this isn’t it. There’s a strong argument to be made, though, that if something’s not broken, then there’s no need to fix it. The tweaks to the game, such as the reworked goal system and inclusion of natural disasters, improve on the formula and keep players engaged. The game’s Achilles heel is the Xbox controller, which handles the enormous slew of in-game option choices adequately, but not admirably. Playing the PC version of the game is much smoother.

The game is remarkably deep, but that might actually work against it with people who are new to this genre. It’s intimidating — and even with a good tutorial, it takes a while to get your sea legs. Worse still, the tutorial takes quite a while to work through, and some players will be tempted to skip it, which will ultimately hurt them. However, for those who stick with it (or those who are familiar with the series or genre), it’s a solid addition to the Tropico line of games.

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