Kudos: Maybe a little too realistic Company: Positech Games Kudos to…well… Kudos, the game. This extremely addictive life simulator is simple, clean and mesmerizing. Assume your identity and try and make it in life, while juggling your career, friends and work. This shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for most of us. You start out in Kudos by assuming an identity. In the demo, you pretty much only have the choice of one female and one male avatar. There are several avatars that they tease you with that are only available in the full version. Once you have your identity, they throw you right into the mix. Your story is told to you in text, explaining the events of the day leading to the evening. Let's face it, you really only have the evening to work within the real world anyway, the rest of your day is tied up with work. You have many choices on how you wish to spend your time while playing Kudos. You can better yourself and attend night classes. You can hang out with your friends, or you can spend the evening by yourself. No matter what you do, it has a positive or a negative affect on several attributes of your life. For example, jogging alone will help lower your stress and increase your fitness, but will not help your social network of friends. You can’t party all the time, because then you will have no money. It is all about balance and moderation. Such is life. And, life is short. The demo only allows you to progress a few weeks through, which is enough time to get going, but not enough to really get anywhere. I really enjoyed the demo for Kudos. I found myself playing around with the different initial sliders and seeing what would help me be more successful. I partied my butt off, and then tried to be a saint and stay in. All of these scenarios had cool ramifications on my life. Let’s see how my next one goes! Stay tuned for the full review. -WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd Related Links: Kudos Positech