For more on Tropico 5, check out our full Tropico 5 review. Or, for more of the best Xbox 360 games for a 10 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
Tropico 5 is a city building game, that puts you in control of a tropical island paradise. Playing as the island's supreme ruler and El Presidente, it's up to you to build the island up into a bustling metropolis, taking care of your citizen's needs by placing new buildings, setting laws, and issuing edicts, while completing the varied missions the game throws your way.
With plenty to keep an eye on, your citizens' needs are divided up into basic categories, like housing, healthcare, and religion. If there are too many homeless citizens, you'll need to build more houses, if their healthcare value's too low, you'll need a new doctors surgery - but isn't as easy as simply building everything they need. With a very limited budget to begin with, you'll need to spend a lot of time building up the island's economy, exporting meat, wool and milk from farms, and crops from plantations, to pay for improvements to your island.
Tropico 5 is a game that has a heck of a lot of depth - but it's also a lot of fun. While it can take some getting used to - especially as the game's very light on tutorials, but very heavy in terms of complexity - should you persevere, there's a world of fun to be had here for those who like their games a little bit more slow paced, and a lot more thoughtful. Requiring a lot of planning, a lot of foresight, and a fair amount of reading - not to mention an idea of how to run an economy - this isn't a game best suited for younger players, but older kids should be able to have fun.
Despite being a dictator sim, there's actually little for parents to worry about with Tropico 5, with little in the way of visual violence, bad language or sexual references.
The game's bad language is accounted for by a very rare utterance of "b**tard" in the dialogue, and what little violence there is comes from the occasional uprising you'll suffer as Presidente - when the rebels try to overthrow you, your royal guard will engage them in combat in the street, exchanging gunfire. However, it's all viewed from a distance, and not all that involved. You can, however, order assassinations of pretty much anyone in the game - although again, you don't see anything gory happen. Meanwhile, the game does feature the odd sexual innuendo, with the game's radio presenter declaring that the earthquake the one night was caused by her and her boyfriend, or telling a police officer that he can "strip search [me] any time".
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
