Gamertell

Title: Kudos 2
Price: $19.99
System(s): PC (Win, Mac)
Release Date: June 10, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Positech Games (Positech Games)
ESRB Rating: N/A
Pros: Quite a few career options and things to purchase. A wide variety of people to make friends with.
Cons: It doesn’t tell you how to save. It’s incredibly difficult to keep friends since almost all activities cost money. Feels like too much for the character to do, and not enough time. A few more character customization options would be nice. Your character gets robbed a lot.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one down; 78/100; C+; * * 1/2 out of 5

One of Positech Games’ most popular series is Kudos, a life simulation that is primarily text-based and allows players to create and maintain a virtual life. The sequel, Kudos 2, refines the experience. While it still is a challenge, it does make certain aspects of the game easier, features art from Jamie McKelvie (Save Point, Phonogram, X-Men: Divided We Stand and Long Hot Summer) and adds new elements absent from the original Kudos experience.

The chance to live, or relive, your life.

You start Kudos 2 as a 20 year old waiter or waitress. You have very little money, no skills, a handful of friends and no possessions.

If that sounds depressing, don’t worry. Your virtual character has his or her whole life ahead of her. You can take classes to build skills, read books to expand horizons, exercise, do things with friends and eventually become an incredibly successful member of society.

It’s a bit of a slow road though. You can only do one activity other than work on weekdays and two activities on weekends. But don’t worry, you have 10 in-game years to make the most of your virtual life.

The “real” world is a cruel, cruel place.

Kudos 2‘s strong point is it’s variety. There are plenty of career, class, freetime and friend outing options to choose from. As you make decisions, a number of different parameters will change, which can make you a more or less desirable person. As you play for the ten year period, you have to carefully balance your character’s need and decide a focal point for your life if you want them to succeed.

The downside is, you really can’t have it all. If you go for a career, you’ll end up spending all your money on classes, instructional books and, if you go for a music career, equipment. If you try to focus solely on friends, you’ll end up drunken, stupid and, possibly, uncultured. If you focus on a relationship, you’ll end up having to spend around $40 or $70 dollars on your boyfriend/girlfriend every couple days on a date to make him/her happy.

The friends in Kudos 2 are among the most useless I have ever seen. Yes, hanging out with them can help raise your attributes, but they aren’t worth the money and time you have to spend on them. If you don’t spend a minumum of 3 days a week with them, your relationship will decline. They don’t give you presents on your birthday. Your significant other never invites you out on “date” events. (The boyfriend for my character would treat her to an outing once a year - at the beer bar. Whee.)To make things worse, there are very few cheap or free activities, so you’ll typically have to spend at least $11 each time to make these people happy. And they’re picky about activities, they won’t do the same thing twice in a row.

And then there’s the crime rate. I never found the burgler alarm in the stores that was mentioned on the webpage, and couldn’t afford a dog. So I went with Kung Fu lessons. Didn’t help. Pretty much every year, my character would get robbed. Gradually, her possessions I’d spent valuable cash accumulating and around half of her nest egg disappeared. (Seriously, thieves would want a copy of a Sudoku book and Pride and Prejudice?) Move out of the neighborhood already.

Tedious and unfulfilling if you don’t set goals or have a strategy.

There are two possible impressions you can get from Kudos 2. If you play in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, pacing yourself and picking one focus for your virtual character’s life, you’ll be successful and perhaps even find the game easy to play. If you decide to go in and just do anything, trying to balance all aspects of your character’s life at once, you’ll end up a bankrupt, uncultured, bored, dirty and ill waiter/waitress for 10 in-game years.

If you love simulation and virtual life games, then I’d recommend test-driving the Kudos 2 demo. That way you’ll know for sure if it’s the kind of challenging game for you. While it can fall under the casual billing, it’s really more of a serious strategic game, so I’d recommend trying it before buying it.

Site [Kudos 2]

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