Kirkis' Review on Real Life

[Kirkis]

Well, there was this big topic about talking about 'getting a Life', so I went online, did some searching, and managed to pick myself up a copy. Here's my thoughts and opinions on Real Life:

Recently on the internet I've been hearing a lot of conversation about something called "Real Life" each time you mention a videogame or a movie somewhere on the internet, someone always has to go ahead and mention that you should try out Real Life.

So I finally decided to try this game for myself, and I have mixed reactions at best.

Let me first start by saying that Real Life's graphics engine is simply amazing. I especially appreciated the lighting effects and the day/night system. Real Life has an amazing resolution that you just don't seem to find anywhere else, and the physics engine will simply make your jaw drop with the moving grass and rippling waves in the water.

Unfortunately, the graphics and physics engines are about the only places where Real Life actually shines. It goes down hill from there, the job system is amazingly unbalanced, you start off by studying for a good portion of the first part of Real Life, earning "credits" and "diplomas" that might go toward your eventual career. 'Might' being the keyword, as someone who has been studying to become one of Real Life's lawyers might find themselves busing tables, while a complete moron might become the next president of Real Life's multiple countries. I will give the job system this much, you might find yourself changing your occupation numerous times through out the first part of Real Life, the most popular jobs among newbies by far seem to be "Fireman" or "Ballerina" (Fireman is not as it sounds btw, you work to put out fires, if you start fires you're consider an "arsonist" we'll get into that later.) You must also supply your own Background Music via "CD/MP3 Players", which could take up to 1/10th of game play to actually achieve the currency for one.

Real Life has an amazing number of time consuming mini games that will probably distract you from your self chosen career, I've seen some players who prefer the "Comic book collection" side quest as opposed to one of Real Life's more mainstream goals such as "Mating" or "Financial Success"

Real Life's world is massive, with literally over a hundred countries all ruled by a different government, with different ideas for religion, trying to memorize them all would quite possibly drive you insane (note kiddies, you may want to stick to remembering something important, like the names of 300 pocket monsters) These countries, often lead by stupid AI, will often go to war over stupid reasons, such as oil, or stepping on someone else's land.

There are rules in Real Life, and you can't do things to set back other players such as torching their property (the "arson" we talked about) or Player killing them ("murder") Let me also take this time to point out that the GM's of Real Life (the "police" in most countries) are often unfair and unjust, If you get caught breaking one of the rules of Real Life you get a record set against you, depending on the severity of the law you broke (or how much the NPC's decide they hate you) you get banned from the world and are locked up in private servers called "prisons" (be careful, player killers often lurk here) for any length of time from a few hours to the rest of the game!

I think this game is unfairly balanced in terms of difficulty as well. While you might have an easy time during the day, the difficulty level of Real Life suddenly jumps as night comes around. Real Life is a complex system in which your character depends on food and liquids to survive, and most of these food service stations are closed at night. Night also happens to be the one time in Real Life when you can suffer the most damage; trip over one "Gang member" class monster and it's all over.

You also have the ability to mate in this game. Pretty much one of the few ultimate goals in real life, the dating system is contrived at best. You can never tell what the hell it is your mate wants, ever. You can try "sexual acts" to please them, but most players of real life will find that the sex system causes more problems then it solves. I hope the creators of Real Life release a patch to fix this in the future.

You also don't have any real control over your character skins or their stats, though people are using hacks to change this such as the famous Michael Jackson, who managed not only to alter his appearance, but his gender as well. Speaking of which, I would like to see more species in later versions of this game. The animal kingdom, while still interesting, isn't nearly as powerful or popular as it once was. Maybe in future releases we'll see the rumored "Extraterrestrial life forms?" Only time will tell.

With a long intro sequence, nine months to be exact, you can tell Real Life is going to be a long game. I haven't finished playing it yet, but I'm told the game is pretty anti-climatic (you die? wtf?) and there really is no final boss, though you will fight a few major bosses along the way. Most of them are hard to beat, and will often plague you for the entire game. Nonetheless, I recommend everyone try Real Life at least once, if anything it will give him or her a reason to bitch over the Internet.

Overall, I give Real Life a 6.5 out of 10;
I recommend this for the true hardcore gamers with a lot of free time to dedicate to this game.

Disclaimer:

I have many handles, ME_MANIA_Sama on DeadJournal, JewelThief on the SFC Forums, Valkors on WoW, and Link(tm) on MySpace. Any additional copies of this post on any other forums/profiles/whatever, are indeed stolen, and I can only hope that such thieves will be flamed to death and exiled from whatever community they have posted my works in.

[Stan]

Lol, nice. Well, I'm also playing "Real Life". I think you should have a more possitive out look on it. It isn't that bad, like, you can make as many friends as you want, you aren't restricted to a small group of people to be with, there are many fun things to do, it has most of the other games activities in it, like snowboarding from SSX, and Snow Jam, or racing like Need For Speed and Grand Trismo, wrestling and boxing like WWE and Street fights. Although, some things are not as fun, such as you said the education part takes up alot of time.

About the music part...it usually doesn't cost that much unless you want a really expensive invenotry. And about the difficulty, you could always try the gyms, they make you stronger, faster, and more durable....Although you are right about them changing there appearance after they already have a charcter.

And about the end....isn't good to see your charcter die, like I've never played a game where it goes right throgh until they do...usually they just end once some boss is killed or an invasion is stopped...you don't really knwo what happens after, at least this way you do .

[Feldoon]

EDIT: Never I mind.

I was too tired to spot the blatant satire. D;

[Occam Arkitect]

It's hard to get some potch out of minigames in Real Life. Can anyone suggest some cheats?

[Fu Su Lu]

Lol, nice. Well, I'm also playing "Real Life". I think you should have a more possitive out look on it. It isn't that bad, like, you can make as many friends as you want, you aren't restricted to a small group of people to be with

And about the end....isn't good to see your charcter die, like I've never played a game where it goes right throgh until they do...usually they just end once some boss is killed or an invasion is stopped...you don't really knwo what happens after, at least this way you do .

these are 2 points about Real Life that must be deeply spoken.

The IA about people tend to be random. You dont have any control over your own acts will produce. I mean, for example you have this absolutely pain in the ass friend or job partner that will ask you many times about another friend, job partner. After one hundred times he/ she asks you answer (lets see if he/she shuts up): 'Yes, I think he/she is weird/stupid/ reckless/stingy/bossy person (or whatever)'. Then the next day you notice people look at you fiercely, because tha asking guy has been repeating that you are going around saying this person is that thing.

Have you noticed about relationships, the IA of some (many) characters of IA must be vague, because you can spend a night with someone and the next day , you can cross with that person on the street and dont even be greeted (or sometimes is your character who wont even look at the other one).

And about death, maybe Real Life is like Suikoden if you do some things during the game, you can play an extra chapter.

Real Life is a good game, it has a good prime source, but most problems come from massive people´s IA

[Kirkis]

Pssssst... it's AI (Artificial Intelligence)

[Stan]

Ya, maybe the secret chapter is this afterlife some people talk about.

[oneWinged]

Real life is better than any game.

[Feldoon]

Ya, maybe the secret chapter is this afterlife some people talk about.

Yeah but over on GameFAQs boards they say it's almost impossible to access.

[Occam Arkitect]

Everone who plays real life knows you will somehow at some point access this "afterlife" mission. Too bad you can't go back and open the chests you missed.

[Fu Su Lu]

Some say you can go back to try get those chests but you dont have a phisic body and people fear you, it is like an extra challenge. But it must be a false rumor...

[Feldoon]

Ah. Some insider knowledge.

Apparently the "afterlife" can be accessed in a similar way to Luc's chapter in Suikoden III.

However, you have to get 4536 people into your castle. Made of sand. In a back garden.

Still, where did the figure 4536 come from, eh? ;D

[Mikalakatov]

You know, I've been meaning to pick up this game, but... I've been too busy playing my other games to even want to try it, the cover art didn't really appeal to me that much, so I was a bit unsure on actually getting it, but with all of you talking about it, it does sound interesting. I might pick it up when I have the time away from my other games ^^

[Reo]

I think my copy is bugged Every time I boot it up, it's sluggish and slow to respond. After about an hour, everything goes all right, but nothing ever happens, and then it crashes after about 15/16 hours of play. What's up with this?

[Feldoon]

Are you sure your computer has access to the online facility "FUN"?

(That's an acynoym, but F.U.N. has that silly word change thing, as you can see.)