This year is 2012, and I'm not one of the people who believe in the whole world ending, but what would you do to survive a post apocalyptic event? Would you only fend for yourself or would help others in need? Will you be able to use your resources efficiently to survive? Well, to get a good idea you can always play I Am Alive. Story - We don't get to much information on the main character or the catastrophic even that took place in I Am Alive. The only things that were divuldged to us is that he was on the other side of the country when disaster hit, whether that be natural or foriegn, we can't really say. The main character is burdened with guilt and is looking for forgivness from his family. After walking for nearly a year, cross country, he finds that his family is missing from the apartment with no clue as to where they might have gone.
Gameplay - To quickly break it down this game revolves around Survival, Climbing, Fighting. When I say survival I am referring to your limited supplies, especially if you play on survival difficulty. You have a Stamina Bar and a Health bar, by using certain items it will replenish one or the other, sometimes both. Burning stamina is the worst thing you can do in this game, as it will surely cripple your abilities to perform anything that requires physical energy. Which climbing is the next biggest part of the game. You'll probably find yourself climbing through the city, A LOT! Luckily for you it seems that every building has pipes on the outside that you can use to scale them. If you don't use the items that replenish your stamina efficiently, you can find youself in a lot of trouble, even if you do make it to your next platform, if you don't have enough stamina to effectively fight off the thugs of the apocalyptic world, you're as good as dead! Fighting off thugs is no easy task, most of the time you'll find yourself out numbered, 1 against 5. If you play your cards right, you'll have more than enough resources to take all of them out with out breaking a sweat. When you first start the game you'll be equipped with a pistol, which if you don't use your bullets wisely you'll have a much harder time, but early in the game you also obtain a machete ( which you'll notice everyone has one in the post apocalyptic world ). You can't swing the machete freely though, it is a button activated right trigger button mashing event that you cause when performing a type of kill. Later in the game you'll also obtain a bow and arrow which can immediately become your favorite. Because you can pick up your arrow, you'll be able to kill and repeat, but don't think the arrow can bail you out of trouble as fast as a gun though, which everyone respects the gun!Visuals - For an XBLA game priced at $15 they made sure this game looked great! Now I'm not saying its the best, but seriously I can't get the fact out of my head that $15 gets you a detailed look into a post apocalyptic world. From the desolate city streets barely visible due to the dust clouds, to the views you get from scaling tall buildings, the developers have done a great job. Once you start the game you'll have a map that shows you different locations, you'll actually be traveling through that part of town and only that part which I found to be quite nice being able to navigate through familiar areas.
Problems - The climbing can be a bit tideous at times, not to mention a little frustrating when you have to be exact at certain points. Sometimes I'll have my character climb to the side when I just wanted to climb down! And I'm not sure if this is a deal break and please tell me if I should never post this as a negative again, but the ending was horrible! Mind you, that is just my opinion only! They could have also added more ways to dispose of the enemies, maybe animation wise at least!So overall I would definitely recommend this game, which I should mention that there is a demo out for it as well. It offers some tense moments, satisfying visuals, and satisfying gameplay. This game took me about a week to play through the whole game with out saving / helping most of the survivors scatter around the city.
Well, do you think you have what it takes to survive? I Am Alive gets a score of: 7.5 out of 10
seanizL
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