Spotlight On - Tropico 4 (at GDC 2011)

Tropico 4 is one of many new games on display at the 2011 Game Developers Conference, and from the looks of it, this sequel will build on everything people enjoyed in Haemimont's Tropico 3 and offer more of it. In Tropico 4, you'll still play the role of El Presidente of the tiny, fictional-but-a-lot-like-Cuba island of Tropico during the nation's tumultuous, fictional-but-a-lot-like-Cuban history across the 20th century.

In Tropico 4, you'll still create a new dictator with different traits and will still need to balance the needs of the people against your nation's burgeoning economy, as well as the requests of foreign superpowers. This time around, you won't just be meeting with the USA and the Soviet Republic. China will also play a role as an economic superpower that you must consider in your administration. To help you attain absolute power and completely above-the-board riches, Tropico 4 will now let you appoint citizens to a council of ministers to support your political initiatives.

Otherwise, Tropico 4 will have a much bigger campaign than the previous game--20 missions across 10 new maps, in fact. The game will also have 20 new structures to build that will reflect the game's latter-day sensibilities, such as a stock exchange, a shopping mall, and a water park. In response to demand from the fan community, the new game will also have more natural disasters (volcanoes, droughts, tornadoes, among others) that will randomly pop up and potentially change the complexion of your current course of action. The game will even integrate functionality for Facebook and Twitter, so if you're the sort of dictator who needs to broadcast every new exploit of your benevolent regime to your followers, you'll be able to do that, too.

Tropico 4 will give Tropico 3 players more of what they want: more missions, more structures, more natural disasters, and more politics. The game is scheduled for release this August on the PC and on the Xbox 360.