When it comes to ideas, I Am Alive has a lot of great ones. Imagine a third-person action game set in a town ravaged by an earthquake; it's a world where you have to scrounge for bullets, food and survivors while climbing around like a post-apocalyptic Nathan Drake. That could easily be the pitch for I Am Alive, but when it comes to turning those ideas into a video game, everything becomes a cumbersome, frustrating mess.
I Am Alive Video Review
A year after "the event" took the country offline, tipped over buildings and created some dust cloud that'll kill you if you stay out in it, our protagonist -- named revealed as you play the game -- marches back to Haventon. This midrange metropolis is his hometown and the last known whereabouts of his wife and daughter. For the next four to five hours, it's up to you to climb, shoot and survive. Sounds good in concept, but it falls apart quickly. The wife/daughter thing is answered in the first few minutes, and then the protagonist just does fetch quests.
You start the game with a gun but ammunition is scarce. Again, this sounds like an interesting gameplay mechanic, but it ends up being lame. If you have no bullets, you can pull the gun on machete-wielding people and get them to raise their hands in surrender -- they back off, but not for good. Lower the weapon and they run at you, leaving you to repeat the process of lowering and raising. They're scared of the gun, but not enough to make a mental note that you have it.
Shouting at enemies with a drawn gun makes them backup, and you can use this to kick them into crevices and off of buildings. However, these scenarios sometimes mean backing the foe up 20-some feet to the edge, which breaks the realism of the move.
If that wasn't enough to create a rift between you and the experience, there are also Surprise Kills and Struggle Kills. Here you use your machete to take out the first and last enemies respectively, watching as your blade passes right through the character models. There's no impact to the deaths.
Climbing makes up a big portion of I Am Alive. The protagonist has a stamina bar that drains as he runs and scales stuff. This creates an "OMG -- is he going to make it?!" vibe as the stamina bar is dropping, but items from the dated-looking inventory can re-up the meter on the spot. So, the chances of a climbing death, and the potential stress involved with the mechanic, aren't all that high.
In fact, the only times I did fall to my death or come close to it were when I was fighting with I Am Alive's controls. I had a hell of a time getting the protagonist to climb poles for a breath of fresh air, to slide down a pipe rather than keep shimmying to a side, and to engage in combat. Some opponents require refined accuracy, and the iron sights on the pistol aren't very responsive. Also, it takes way too long to fire the damn bow.
The kicker to all of this is that I Am Alive looks bad. The animations are stiff, and the dust cloud you get stuck in seems like a cheap way to do away with draw distances.
I Am Alive Video Review
A year after "the event" took the country offline, tipped over buildings and created some dust cloud that'll kill you if you stay out in it, our protagonist -- named revealed as you play the game -- marches back to Haventon. This midrange metropolis is his hometown and the last known whereabouts of his wife and daughter. For the next four to five hours, it's up to you to climb, shoot and survive. Sounds good in concept, but it falls apart quickly. The wife/daughter thing is answered in the first few minutes, and then the protagonist just does fetch quests.
You start the game with a gun but ammunition is scarce. Again, this sounds like an interesting gameplay mechanic, but it ends up being lame. If you have no bullets, you can pull the gun on machete-wielding people and get them to raise their hands in surrender -- they back off, but not for good. Lower the weapon and they run at you, leaving you to repeat the process of lowering and raising. They're scared of the gun, but not enough to make a mental note that you have it.
Shouting at enemies with a drawn gun makes them backup, and you can use this to kick them into crevices and off of buildings. However, these scenarios sometimes mean backing the foe up 20-some feet to the edge, which breaks the realism of the move.
If that wasn't enough to create a rift between you and the experience, there are also Surprise Kills and Struggle Kills. Here you use your machete to take out the first and last enemies respectively, watching as your blade passes right through the character models. There's no impact to the deaths.
Climbing makes up a big portion of I Am Alive. The protagonist has a stamina bar that drains as he runs and scales stuff. This creates an "OMG -- is he going to make it?!" vibe as the stamina bar is dropping, but items from the dated-looking inventory can re-up the meter on the spot. So, the chances of a climbing death, and the potential stress involved with the mechanic, aren't all that high.
It's the express train -- TO HELL!
The kicker to all of this is that I Am Alive looks bad. The animations are stiff, and the dust cloud you get stuck in seems like a cheap way to do away with draw distances.
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