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Editors’ Review
Download.com staff
More a quest for education than adventure, Real Lives is interesting enough, if not exactly exciting stuff. Basically, you are born at some distant point on the globe, and your life unfolds under the financial, cultural, political, and medical circumstances of your home country. Life goes by at its own pace, but you can jump forward a year or backtrack to make different decisions. In our case, as a girl in India, disasters, diseases, and cataclysms visited our corner of the world, sometimes affecting the family and sometimes not. The action in our life was limited to home economics, though we found it strange that our heroine was never offered the option to have children; neither could she start a business--her husband was the sole breadwinner, apparently. However, our frustration at having so little control over the shape of our life was tempered by the insights we gained about the geographical lottery of life. Gamers are likely to find Real Lives a bit too rooted in the real world, but sociology students may enjoy the opportunity to watch their curriculums play out in this detailed simulation.
What’s new in version 2010
Real Lives 2010 adds the following new features to the Real Lives simulation of life:
3D animated graphics of faces of all characters; Totally re-designed user interface; Integrated Google Maps and Flickr photos; family trees; graphs of personal attributes over time.
learn to know the "world" you never seen from your point of view...
Cons
you need to know the limitations of your country....
Summary
you can know the countries!
Nice game, but very glitchy.
Beststarter
Pros
Great concept, and great research. There are a lot of possibilities in this game, and it is as realistic as most games get.
Cons
Not realistic enough, too many choices, and a lot of glitches. Running a business is too easy, every life is able to make 100's of billions of dollars by increasing business capital every year making billions per month. Many other glitches as well.
Summary
This product is a great game, very educational but the glitches in programming and in the realistic/concept of the game get annoying at times. Investment even in the riskiest stocks is very slow while business booms no matter what and by increasing business investment every year you can easily make billions of dollars (My character had 1.1 TRILLION before he died.) There are too many choices in things like alcohol and smoking which should become randomly addictive. There are glitches such as long divorced wives having children and being part of the family. This game could use a good programmer to debug the glitches and add more realistic aspects while taking out unrealistic aspects. Business are hard to make even a few hundred thousand let alone a trillion. Sexual abuse is too rare in the game considering statistics. The game does not take into account the time (year) of play, and resets the year depending on your age at death. This game has a lot of potential if a few good minds were to work on it. As an educational simulation is does an okay job, and as a game a little less. Potentially it could be an 8 out of 10, but as it stands I would give it a 3 or 4.
A very good fun educational Game
Jacilious
Pros
It's very informative, fun, and entertaining. You get to see how your life turns out with many options and you can choose who you marry, your career, and alot of other things.
Cons
There are alot of limits as well, like you can't go out of the country you're in, there's no information on your grandchildren, and you can't really interact with others.
Summary
I like this game b/c its so much like the sims but its more informative and closer to real life than any other game I've ever played. The only drawbacks are the lacking in interaction with other people and you can not move to other countries.
Interesting
whitemoongurl
Pros
You get to see what life would be like if you were someone else living in different country.
Cons
Only play as yourself, but you don't see what you look like or anything like that. This isn't a SIM game or anything.
Summary
The whole concept of this is pretty cool. I would like to see what the characters might look like.
not for middle school or lower
maidensolo
Pros
I like it because it's very interactive and realistic and reminds us all of the Sims in the way it behaves
Cons
It gets off to a slow start, which is why I don't think 8th grade and under will sit still long enough for the character to establish himself. Not much happens in the first couple of years in the life of the child.
Summary
fun
crispy261
Pros
good fun game
Cons
Summary
Simple. Great way to learn about other countries.
aliacono1942
Pros
It seemed to be well-researched with all of the facts having references. Interesting way to learn about the world.
Cons
Maybe a more detailed map would be better
Summary
fun and educational
kitkatt1216
Pros
addicting, learn alot about other cultures, no major flaws, easy to use
Cons
doesnt allow enough user interaction,poor game interface
Summary
Great
justthewayimfeeling
Pros
I love this game. although it is educational. You get to either pick a random life, or you can create a life. You get to chose what country your from, gender, name. etc. You can choose how smart or clever you are, and lots of different things. They have hundreds of countrys, and have obviously done there research. YOu start at 0, and can choose everything about the persons life, if your smart you do well, and get a good job, and have a better house etc. if you dont then well.. although it teachs you alot about how lucky you are to live in this country with lots of opertunitys, because if you live in a 3rd world country then it's hard to get a job even if your 100% smart
Cons
alot of reading to do. Its a game, but not a game game as such
Summary
Great *Educational* Game
j4ne1
Pros
Fun. You get to pick any country and live there from age 0 til you die. You go to school and try to get into college if you are smart enough, get a job, get a love love interest/married, you expereince natural disasters, sickness, and other real life issues. These events all come with a fact and statistic about the place you are living in. It's mostly text based. It's very educational.
Cons
Repatative and probably boring for some people after a short period of time. A lot of reading and facts if you are just looking for a game. Some facts are outdating/incorrect.
Live a virtual life in any country.Real Lives is an interactive life sim that enables you to live one of billions of lives in any country. Through statistically accurate events, Real Lives brings to life different cultures, political systems, economic opportunities, personal decisions, health issues, family issues, schooling, jobs, religions, geography, wars, and periods of peace. Real Lives 2010 adds the following new features to the Real Lives simulation of life: - 3D animated graphics of faces of all characters; - Totally re-designed user interface; - Integrated Google Maps and Flickr photos; - family trees; - graphs of personal attributes over time;
