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Kudos 2 Review
I have a ginormous backlog of items to fix on Wildhollow, but today I chose to spend my precious time on research instead. “Research?” you ask in a bewildered tone. “Indeed,” I answer with a wry smile. Keeping myself informed about what’s going on in the indie games world is essential to success! Which is why I chose to play Kudos 2, a game that came out months ago and has nothing in common with the style of Wildhollow. Ehm. Wait a minute… That may not have been so smart after all.
Kudos 2 is the sequel to the life simulator Kudos (no surprise there), which was a stats-based game centered around balancing all the little elements that makes up a young person’s life, and ensuring that he/she becomes a healthy, wealtyh, social and happy member of society. Or, if one is thus inclined, an ugly moronic misfit shunned by everyone.
When Kudos 2 was announced I saw one poster complain that it’s just a re-skinned version of the original Kudos. I don’t agree at all…but there’s no denying that – on a conceptual level – the games are essentially the same. You make choices that affect your character’s stats in various ways, and in that area nothing much has changed between the games. But Kudos 2 has received a massive injection of fun! The writing is improved, the interface is improved (I love how the diary is used to convey information), the choices are a bit more varied now and then, and so on. It all adds up.
I didn’t like the original Kudos but I kinda like Kudos 2. It’s still not a game for me, though, because I’m not sure that I can win the game. I want my character to be attractive, smart, social, wealthy, cultured, have an excellent job and heaps of friends – but from what I’ve seen I doubt that it’s possible. The game is semi-realistic in that it requires you to make hard choices and balance all those aspects against each other. I don’t like that. I tried to make Mister Fagballs smart and educated in the hope that it would give him a good job which would enable him to do lots of cool stuff later…but for some reason his lousy friends didn’t understand that he needed to concentrate on his studies rather than hang out. “It’s more work than it’s worth it, being friends with you,” they said. Well, screw them! Who needs ‘em! Mister Fagballs has his science classes and his biology, not to mention his sudoku book.
Oh, the sudoku book. It all went downhill after he bought that sudoku book. Rather than spend an evening at a pop concert Mister Fagballs sharpened his logic skills with sudokus instead. The game probably sensed his loneliness because it unlocked the “go to church” event – almost like it sensed that he was in need of some spiritual guidance. I assume that that was a sign from above. But just in that instance, another sign from above came: the saga of Mister Fagballs was abruptly brought to an end as the game crashed and burned. Well, okay, it didn’t burn. But it crashed at least.
Graphics
Simplistic but pleasant. Nice characters and portraits, although a few stood out like a sore thumb. Serves its purpose well.
3/5
Sound
Pretty varied and decent enough. Nothing special.
3/5
Gameplay
I love the concept of making choices to see how a character turns out. At least in theory. There’s no denying that there’s a good game here.
4/5
Addictiveness
I’m divided about this. It’s a fun game with a lot of replay value, but I find it frustrating to always balance different stats against each other.
3/5
Technical notes
The game started up in fullscreen and did awful things to my two-screen setup. Everything was restored fine when I put it in windowed mode, though, so no harm done. (Come to think of it… Is it my imagination or did the game alter my brightness/gamma settings?) There’s a massive delay when switching to the game window, and it appears to be crash prone.