It's the sort of choice which the likes of Bethesda have promised so often but so rarely delivered upon, and to find it in these few games helps to make them truly stand out even against the big budget industry. From growing up as a baby to your final days on Earth, years upon years can be shaped by your will alone. You are given almost anything to work with, every situation to go through, and can control your character's life for decades at a time.

However, perhaps most important of all is what games like Alter Ego offer: Total control. You are never railroaded into following a single story, and instead events follow a strangely fluid cohesion to bring you to an eventual end. You could be heading down a set path, following a set plan or obvious end-game, but simply answering that one experience makes you feel angry or that you have an unusual food preference immediately opens new doors.

Interestingly, games like Alter Ego are among those distinct few which truly can change entirely with a single decision. Every action present opens up a new path, offering the player a chance to keep coming back and questioning 'I wonder what would happen if I did this?' They will just lead to pain or problems, but more than a few negatives can lead to positive results in the long run. Some of these are inherently wrong, and you can tell this from the start. Emotional, physical or stressful, your task is to join the dots and see which one equates what response, and to adapt to the consequences as best you can. The very structure and design of these games is intended to simulate events.

Often by giving you a situation so similar to your current life, but allowing you to make the decisions you might otherwise ignore or avoid risking. Yet, despite this, games like Alter Ego find a way to make it engaging. In a genre which offers you the chance to slay dragons, take on mecha-Hitler or create a personal kingdom, anything so dull as day-to-day groceries might seem mundane. There's a bizarre kind of attraction which can be found in simulated life.

Alter ego game