Game Review: Dictator – Outbreak (Mobile – Free to Play)

Ever wanted to be El Presidente? In charge of your own piece of island heaven where the people work for you? Where anyone that dares speak out against you can be put to death by your military? How about basking in the love of your citizens as you agree to increase wages or build new homes for them to enjoy?

Sounds great, doesn’t it? If you want all of this & more go pick up one of the Tropico games. Dictator: Outbreak is a little more ‘stream-lined’.

Here you take the role of Mr. Dictator given a budget of $1.5 million & tasked with listening to the needs of the different factions. They come in 6 different groups:

Police, Oligarchs, People, Opposition, Army & Family.

Every month you must choose who you will give an audience too & the same one can’t be chosen twice in a row. Choose a faction & they will come to you with something that needs sorting out.

These are political choices that affect your standing with certain other factions. For example: choosing to see the Opposition they suggested that you prohibit the sale of alcohol to military personnel. You have two options: yes or no.

Choosing yes will see your standing with the Oligarchs, Police, Opposition & Family improve but your standing with the Army & People will drop. It’s all about keeping the balance & not focusing on one over the other.

Each decision you make costs money with the aim of the game being to stay in power as long as possible while keeping the money rolling in. Not an easy task at all.

Should your standing with one faction drop too low you could see a conspiracy to oust you start to take shape. These also come in the form of decisions that can go one of two ways:

Take a hard-line stance & throw them in prison costing you overall standing with all the other factions & eliminating them from having an audience with you for a set number of turns.

The softer approach will end up costing you money which will affect your overall score. It can be quite challenging to keep everyone happy as your decisions inevitably annoy someone.

A free to play game, ads are a regular annoyance popping up after every few turns & easily clicked on taking you out of the game & into the store. The game also has a few in-app purchases, 79p for a case of cash which can help extend your time in power (very questionable as this is basically paying to win) & £1.49 for more advice.

Advice is a bonus that will give you insight into how factions are going to react to your decisions so you can easily choose the better one. It’s worth remembering that the decision making is the only actual gameplay here, taking the fun away from seeing the outcome of your choices & than having to deal with the fallout…well you might as well delete the game completely.

There is some fun to be had here but it’s very limited & after a few attempts there isn’t much reason to come back.