Alter Ego

The Good
You can tell that the game's author holds a Psychology PhD. Every situation in the game has a myriad of potential outcomes, and the factors which influence the outcome are highly subtle. For example, in your career you have the chance of meeting a potentially influential businessman for a drink - any past tendency to abuse alcohol makes a positive outcome less likely, but if your character's vocational strength, confidence and expressiveness are high enough, you might get away with it. When attempting to get attention at a service station, you need to be pushy but not too pushy - your record of calmness and expressiveness impact the likely result here.

With so many personality factors to decide before the game even starts, each game can be completely different. As the packaging suggests, you can be whoever you want to be. Decisions are easier as well, as there's nothing physiological or tangible riding on them. Why run the risk of your wife finding out about an affair if you won't feel anything during the affair?

The Bad
The game takes place in a sandbox world. As the game progresses there are no political or social changes, the whizz-bang car or computer you've bought doesn't depreciate in value, and this limits the range of careers on offer to 'normal' ones. Also, the game code assumes that your parents were together in your childhood, and that you are heterosexual (needless to say, the author of an online remake of the game gets many requests to add this feature).

Although some of the dialogue did make me chuckle, other sections are cringe-worthy and cloying.

The Bottom Line
An adventure game of sorts, Alter Ego puts you into a simulation of real life, and gives you all the key choices to make. You can choose a degree and a career path, anything from entrepreneur to scientist, save lives, take up interesting hobbies, and have the marriage of your dreams. It's an individual and unusual basis for a game, but it all hangs together due to the variety, humour and obvious validity of the outcomes.