While Tropico 2: Pirate's Cove may be fairly free of cliched pirate phrases according to a Gamespot preview, this new game coming from Frog City and Pop Top surely deserves a hearty "Arrrr!" from Tropico and city building sim fanatics alike. Featuring a similar interface and graphics engine as the original banana republic dictatatorship game Tropico, Tropico 2 features a brand new merchant and plundering system, tons of fresh new buildings and units, and of course, lots of pirates.

Tropico 2 has not yet been announced for the Mac, but MacSoft is planning to bring the Tropico Mucho Macho Edition, which includes both the original and its expansion, so it would seem the franchise is viable on the platform.

Nobody would expect pirates to be nice, and they're not. The pirate island's economy is entirely based on the money that comes in from robbing ships. Build a dock or two, equip a ship with cannons, and load it with crew and a captain and you'll then be ready to take a piece of the Caribbean riches. While you don't manually control ships in combat, there is some strategy involved in picking missions for your pirate ships, outfitting six types of ships, and choosing specific battle tactics--like staying back to pound opposing ships with cannons or rushing in to board.

Gamespot Tropico 2 Preview

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