Real Lives.

It's not often a game makes me really think about how lucky I really am. In a world full of misery, poverty, and war to live in a warm house full of food, access to a TV and the Internet, and stacks of commercial products I have it good. When you're confronted with the plight of the majority of the rest of the world (remember if you're reading this you're most likely amongst the top 10% richest people in the world) you find it hard to complain when you can't find a McDonalds near you. Real Lives succeeds in showing you just how harsh life is for most of the worlds population and, in the end, it's all a tad bit depressing.

The basic premise of Real Lives sees you being born at a random location around the world into a completely randomised family. Since the game uses real-world statistics you'll most likely be born into a third-world country or a family that doesn't exactly have it great. This makes sense as the games aim is to educate you about the world's plight without just handing you a pamphlet filled with hundreds of statistics (the game provides a bit of information about each occurrence - which makes it all the more interesting.). However, you will sometimes be born into a fairly well-off country/family. In any case you can emigrate to any country you wish as long as you have the cash.

It may sound interesting at first - and it is - but it's so damn depressing. For example, on my first attempt I was born as Rafiki Mayat in Senegal. From the start I had my growth stunted from inadequate protein and then I had a whopping cough. A year later I'd caught measles and was suffering from malaria. At the same time I also had schistosomiasis and by the time I was nine I was a famine victim. Later on I found out I was gay, got chlamydia and died at the ripe old age of forty-two. You may think this is going a bit overboard but the sad fact is that people actually live lives like this somewhere in the world.

Even when you're born into a family doing well you can have major problems. Born as girl in South Africa I was incredibly gifted academic wise. After graduating college with a physics degree and attending graduate school to receive an advanced degree in physics I became a doctor and tried desperately to find some romance. Even though my appearance score was high I suffered rejection after rejection. Even when I started seeing someone we eventually broke up. There was even one guy who was such a bastard that he dumped me after I'd been raped.

After shunning men and becoming a lesbian I moved to London and found a nice woman to settle down with. Unfortunately I died at forty-five in a road traffic accident.

Damn, life is hard.

Download it here (the evaluation version is free forever. The only thing missing is the character creator where you can customise your own character. Everything else seems to be included in the free version so you really don't have to spend $25, but I'm sure it all goes to a good cause.).

(Found via TIGSource.)

EDIT: I've just noticed that in the evaluation copy the number of lives you've lived is the number of seconds the game will take to load up. I knew there had to be a catch somewhere.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!