One of the games that we will be reviewing right after we finish the Catherine review will be the fourth installment of the popular Tropico series. This franchise came to my attention back in 2009 when Tropico 3 came out and ever since then, the game has become a favorite of mines.

Usually a console gamer, I rarely go to the PC realm due to how addicting these games can be, but with Tropico I had to make an exception. In case you didn’t know the demo of Tropico 4 is already out and you can download it via Steam.

About Tropico

Most people think of Tropico as dictator simulator, but the reality is that this game is more than that. In deed you are a dictator, but you are also a city builder and you can make big cities or small towns. Like any country there’s a currency and you use that currency to build up the nation and provide the basic necessities that your citizens need.

You have to use the many available methods to stay in power all while keeping the people happy. If you do not provide the basic needs like clinics, churches, food, entertainment and jobs you will get less voters in the upcoming election. Since you play a dictator in the game you can fix the election and make it favor your side.

There are different factions around the island and you must keep its leaders happy otherwise they will start a protest against you. This could lead to people in that specific faction to revel against you and start destroying the things that produce money for the island.

The nice thing about this is that as your nation is growing you start to build up an army that will take care of the troublemakers.

Gameplay

In the demo you get to rule the island nation of St. Clara, a fictional Caribbean island where you get to experience first hand what is like to be a dictator and control everything. As with any new game of the Tropico franchise you always get more stuff and that’s what makes it shine.

In Tropico 3 there were a lot of things missing and even thought they released the expansion pack “Absolute Power” it just felt like it needed a bit more. It seems like the folks over at Kalypso Media really worked hard at making this game and you will notice this just by looking at it.

The new features.

Buildings

In total Tropico 4 will have about 20 new buildings such as a Stock Exchange, Shopping mall, Aqua Park, Mausoleum, Chemical Factory, Roller Coaster, Fire Station Ministerial building, Salt Mine, Space/Cosmic Needle, Plantation, Museum of Modern Art, Zeppelin Hangar, Nuclear Power Plant to Horticulture Station and many more.

Disasters

There will be natural disasters such as Tornadoes, Volcanoes and even a Tsunami in Tropico 4. In the demo we got to experience a tornado and it caused minor damages to the Island.

Politics

The new “national agenda” gives you objectives from different factions and the faster that you complete these, the happier they will be.

Some citizens become criminals now and others become rebels as well, so you will need more police stations as well as prisons and army bases.

New superpowers such as the Middle East and China and with these new ones you will have to make different decisions to make in controversial issues.

You can see all the new features by clicking here

Graphics & Tech

The way that this game looks is much better than it’s predecessor an you will notice as soon as you get the demo. It seems like the map is faster and overall it’s much smoother to move around the island.

Do we recommend this game?

Of course we do and not because we are fans of the series, but it’s because it’s the kind of game that speaks for itself. If you do not want to but it at least check out the demo.

Since Mafia 2 is one of the games for this year that we are planing on getting and one that we have personally been anticipating, we thought you should know what our impressions of the game demo are and it should answer some questions that you may have. The Mafia 2 demo is worth getting, but were debating on whether or not the game is a buy or a rent. For us, we feel that we’ve been spoiled with Grand Theft Auto IV’s Euphoria game engine and playing this demo on 2K games PhysX engine just feels different and that’s ok, because Mafia 2 is not Grand Theft Auto. We were expecting more from the demo, but to be honest with you, we are not that impressed with the gameplay in general.

On the positive side of this game the team over at 2K games did a great job as far as looks go because the graphics look amazing especially on the XBOX 360. We appreciated what the developers did, letting you choose whether or not you want to watch the cut-scenes or simply skip them. The driving was nice and flexible, but sometimes the streets were a bit narrow and being that in that era you had cars that were huge this made it a bit irritating because it makes you hit things.

The police in this game are really intelligent and so they will chase you around a lot so they will take you down. Another thing that this game has is that if you are planing to carjack up a car from somebody driving you better be ready to shoot that person because most of the drivers have guns and will shoot at you.

Because this is just a demo, we are not going to get discouraged about getting this game and we will buy it once it comes out that way we can give you a better review. There are alot of negative things about this game as well as positive and we will just have to wait and see.

We recently downloaded the demo for Just Cause 2 on the Playstation 3 and well you probably already know that one of our favorite games is the Grand Theft Auto series and games similar to that genre. You also should know that we were disappointed with Rockstar because the map on Grand Theft Auto 4 was really small and made us feel short changed.

Just Cause 2 has done the opposite of Grand Theft Auto IV and the developers really knew what the gamers wanted and that is a big map. The demo on Just Cause 2 starts off in the desert region of Panau, the fictional island archipelago in the game and you get to experience the dry desert towns and even ghost towns of that region in the game.

The funny part of the game is that the desert region is only a small area in the demo. If you look at the map you can tell that it’s robust island with a very diverse eco system, which makes the game more interesting. Just Cause 2 has a Spiderman feel to it because of a that hook that Rico has which he can use to pull people and do many other cool things.

You can hook a enemy to a propaine tank, shoot the tank and have the tank drag the enemy around until it eventually explodes. Another cool thing is if you are driving a vehicle, you you can hook the enemy to the vehicle and drive around until eventually the body decomposes. Just Cause 2 will be available on the Playstation 3, XBOX 360 and PC March, 23, 2010.

Because the demo is so awesome, the gameplay is fun and reminds us of Grand Theft Auto, we give the Just Cause 2 Demo a 5 out of 5.

Our impressions with the God Of War 3 demo were such that we were just blown away by how the game looks, but most importantly the game play. Sony Santa Monica studios developed this game and has put the demo at the Playstation store right now, we urge you to check it out of course. It was funny for us because we were surprised  that the game is as good as it is, being that we don’t usually cover games like that.

Now let’s talk about the game and how it looks because it is really important at least to us. God Of War 3 looks amazing and the best thing about it is that you could actually tell that the game developers pushed the Playstation 3 to it’s limit. When you play the demo you will know what we mean, because while playing you actually feel like Kratos which makes everything feel real.

Another cool thing thats going on with the game is that Gamestop is having a real awesome sweepstakes giveaway get more details here, but basically there are two weeks left so if you pre ordered God Of War 3 through Gamestop you can enter to win “Feast Of the Gods” basically free pizza for a year or “Fight Of The Gods” basically a trip to Las Vegas that includes 3 nights hotel stay at the MGM Grand, airport limo pick up/drop off and tickets to MMA fight.

Because the game is that awesome, we really can’t say much and give a 5 out of 5.

High Def screenshots

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Also check out the trailer below.

We recently got the chance to play some demos and one of them was of course Yakuza 3 on the Playstation 3. The game seems fun and and the city looks great, but the graphics didn’t really impress us at all. It could be because of the demo, but other things did impress us and that was the fighting action part which was great. The one negative of fighters is that you is almost exercise for your fingers and with Yakuza 3 you will do a lot of exercise because there’s a lot of kicking and action going on in the game, which makes things uncomfortable after a while. The translation was a problem because you pretty much have to read everything if you are to understand the story and that can be a pain, because as gamers, we want to play games and not read.

The story line of Yakuza 3 is probably what made the game awesome in Japan, but to bring it to the western world, especially the United States and not hire voice actors it makes the game a hassle to play. My expectations of the game were not met in the demo and although we should be thankful to Sega for bringing it over here, we are disappointed at them for not hiring voice actors to translate the game.

Sega if you have a reason to believe that we gave Yakuza 3 a bad/unfair rating, and that the game will be better once is out and makes it to blueray then, we urge you to send us a copy of the full game and well check it out and give it a full review, but as of now the Yakuza 3 demo gets a 3 out of 5.

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