Paradise by the keyboard light
The Tropico series is a massively popular strategy franchise which offers much to the armchair tactician who enjoys their games laced with a healthy dose of humor. Paradise Island is an add-on for the original installment, so if you are still playing it, this makes for a fine addition to your collection as it introduces some nice new elements. If you're not familiar with the original, it's essentially a mix of SimCity and the Tycoon games, with various elements of city building, business management and so on, all tied into a tropical island setting. As with most such add-ons, Paradise Island brings in plenty of new building types to enhance the experience and the strategic possibilities, including a pleasure dock, cinemas, and furniture factories, while there are also new tourist types, such as eco-conscious ones so you now have to consider how environmentally friendly your island is. The other main element to be found here is the various natural hazards, such as diseases, tropical storms and hurricanes and which again force you to consider how you might cope with them. As far as add-on packs go, this is a pretty decent one, given the amount of content it brings and the price point for which it goes for. The essential gameplay is, of course, the same, as are the visuals and interface, but the extras here go a long way towards enhancing your experience, given the amount of extra options you now have at your disposal, and the increased range of events which might occur. All this together makes Paradise Island an essential addition to any Tropico fan's collection.
