Kudos 2

Although your day-to-day choices might fly past you unnoticed most of the time, they are very important and they can mean the difference between success and failure sometimes. A missed party can turn into a few extra hours of studying that get you into a good college, while working a bit less during week-ends can give you more time to meet someone nice at the local pub.

Kudos 2 is a life sim that allows you to witness the power of such decisions, by providing you with full control over the fate of a young man or woman, from the age of twenty to thirty. Throughout the years, you must choose between a good career or a lot of friends, education over physical appearance and many other such mind-bending decisions that seem much more drastic when seen in quick succession.

Obviously, there isn't much of a plot going on, given the fact that you must create your own destiny and choose your path with every step. You can, however, imagine whatever you like, since there are no constraints and only your creativity sits in the way of a fascinating story featuring the character you created. Do not forget that he or she isn't real, though, otherwise you might end up in weird situations.

Just like in real life, your character can increase a certain skill by practicing it over and over again. Since the game uses turn-based mechanics, this translates into the fact that you can choose to perform one action per day, which only increases a few of your abilities. Hence, you can go out with friends and increase your excitement, or choose to stay home and take a bath, thus increasing your cleanliness stat.

These are the choices you have to do every day, only to realize that life went past you and your character turns thirty. At the end of the game, you get to see the fruits of your labor and whether you managed to keep him/her on the right track. Children, a good job, happiness and financial stability are usually signs that you did good, while drug abuse, loneliness and weight problems means that you need to have another go at it.

In the end, Kudos 2 has enough content to keep you occupied for a long period of time, especially since you can always replay the game and see what happens when you take a different path. It can also be very educational, although you should definitely not make your life decisions based on a video game.