Their emotional trajectory tracks from disturbing, to comical to "enough already I'll shoot you in the face with a bow and arrow and get this audio cue over with." Every person dies one of those comically gurgly, beg for mercy Monty Python deaths. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it every chance you get. It also doesn't gel with the nice guy image the narrative tries to paint. You can also kick men off buildings or into fires, but this flourish typically leaves Adam prone to attack, resulting in death. In short, prepare to slit lots of throats.
Mix-up the order, and Adam's injured, killed, or out of ammo. The third, left to plea for his life, is stabbed via a lengthy quick-time event. The first man is killed with a surprise throat-slit maneuver. 75% of the time, three men approach Adam. Unfortunately, the system never amounts to more than a handful of repeated showdowns. It's a welcome addition to video games, where people hurry into gun fights the way sane people hurry onto a bus. On a few occasions, they'll charge Adam, knowing he likely lacks any ammo. Most of the time they gingerly raise their hands in half defeat. Then there are guns, and they are useful, actually, when not being fired. A tough choice is sapped of drama the third time it's made. And having to think so much about all three is another strike against the game's emphasis on real world decision-making.
Where episodes, save sections and checkpoints in I Am Alive begin and end is unclear. Having trouble completing a save section? Restart the episode. No more retries, and Adam must restart from the save section. Which involves a lot of climbing things before Adam exhausts himself and falls to his death.Īdam starts with three retries, which bounce him back to a checkpoint. Mae's mother Linda is somewhere in the city, and Adam takes it upon himself to find her, secure her safety, salvage a distress beacon, pick up her laundry, make her bed, and cook amuse-bouche before being on his way to find what's-her-name and who's-her-face. A lost young girl named Mae, who reminds Adam of his own daughter, sidetracks this quest before the introduction is complete. Our handsomely rugged 30-something protagonist Adam hopes to find his wife and daughter in the city of Haventon, which, nearly a year ago, was devastated by earthquakes and poisonous ash. It feels like a game that had a troubled four-year-development across two studios on opposite ends of the Earth. If you’ve already tired of every other shooter’s and climber’s formulas, this hybrid will surprise you, test you, and remind you why experimentation in games is always a good thing, even when it doesn’t fully work out.This was a surprise, given how skillfully it made me feel ashamed and guilty about bad things I wasn't even aware I was doing.Ĭonceived in 2008 by Darkworks as a full-featured retail product, and completed in 2012 by Ubisoft Shanghai as a downloadable title, I Am Alive is technically unstable and narratively disjointed. Yes, you may tire of I Am Alive before you reach the credits, but the overall experience is still an intense and worthwhile one - the game not only forces you to take risks, it takes some great risks itself. Or around the same time that your eyes glaze over from the endless palette of dusty brown visuals. The unusual becomes the familiar, and unfortunately, it's right around the same time that enemy encounters increase in size and the game's stingy replay allowance starts working against you. That's not to say the second half is any worse than the first - you just won't be as caught off-guard by its innovative tricks. At some point, probably with a couple hours of playtime still ahead, you'll realize I Am Alive has a limited number of these ideas and is merely going to replicate them for the remainder of the game.
Later in I Am Alive, you must even plan the simple act of walking down the street, as heavier, deadlier smog forces you to find pockets of fresh air (or steal a gas mask from a fallen foe) to survive. Climbs are just as strategically harrowing, with careful timing, controlled sliding, scattered footholds and frugal inventory management the only tools at your disposal.