A hotel full of kidnapped women is one of the more disturbing settings.We’ve seen our share of post-apocalyptic Xbox games, but I Am Alive is different. Darker. Its stark vision of life after an unnamed catastrophe is bleaker than what we’re used to in jaunts like Fallout 3 and Enslaved, and more akin to books like The Road or old-school nuclear-war flicks à la The Day After. This morbidity makes for an absorbing action/adventure…if one that doesn’t quite match its creators' ambitions.
Your hero has spent the last year crossing what’s left of America to reach his hometown, where he’s hoping to find the family he became separated from after The Event. I Am Alive begins with a well-disguised tutorial to its climbing mechanics — a big gameplay element we enjoyed more than we’d expected. Like the rest of the city, the bridge leading into Haventon is an unstable mass of twisted steel, and crossing it involves scaling pipes and shimmying along ledges. The game takes a uniquely realistic approach to climbing: it burns stamina, and if you run out of stamina while scaling a building or cliff, you fall to your doom. Eventually, you’ll find pitons (plant one to regenerate stamina mid-climb) and a seldom-used grappling hook, and in a couple of nifty sequences, you’ll even slide down the outside of toppled skyscrapers.
Eventually, you’ll get a gas mask that lets you last longer in the dust.Reaching high ground is usually vital: in much of Haventon, toxic dust fills the streets, and you’ll die if you’re in it too long. This hazy cloud limits your ability to wander the partly open world, which can be irritating; it also explains the game’s fuzzy, near-monochromatic visuals. I Am Alive often looks as dark as its tone, especially when you’re indoors. This atmospheric art style is well-used throughout: in a dimly lit subway and inside a massive boat, for instance, other people — who appear just rarely enough to keep you on-edge — seem to emerge mysteriously from the shadows.
For as much time as you’re traveling alone, your interactions with fellow survivors are the heart of the game…and its darkness. The best part of the story is Mei, the lost little girl you bond with after rescuing her from thugs; for a while, she even rides around on your back. Many of your briefer conversations are with desperate victims asking for items (a first-aid kit, a last cigarette before dying); in one grittier scenario, folks are locked up in a cannibals’ den. Some victims’ remarks are pretty harrowing, although their tendency to repeat the same dialogue strings each time you approach is a disappointing illusion-buster.
Rest as long as you want, but once you start climbing (as you have here), move quickly!Combat, too, has some good ideas that don’t work as well as we’d hoped. Random thugs make brutal threats, then rush you in small packs. You can usually surprise-slash the first with your machete, but battling their comrades involves pointing your empty pistol at them to make them retreat, or — if you have bullets — shooting one or two to thin their ranks. We love how, as in The Road, bullets are an ultra-rare resource; more frustrating is the penalty for being killed. An overly convoluted save system lets you respawn at checkpoints if you have “retries” (earned by helping victims and completing chapters), but when you run out, you’re thrown farther back and may have to replay 10 or 15 minutes. We’d have much preferred a tight, four-hour XBLA game to one that took us six hours due to needless repetition.
Our other big gripe is the ending, which leaves much of the story unresolved — a huge bummer in such a plot-focused game. For apocalypse buffs, much of I Am Alive is riveting stuff; we’d love to see a follow-up that improves on its framework.
Be warned: Once you finish I Am Alive’s main story, you can’t go back and rescue additional victims (for fun or Achievements). In fact, you can’t even access any save-games from your completed playthrough.PUBLISHER: Ubisoft • DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Shanghai • ESRB: Mature • MULTIPLAYER: None • ACHIEVEMENTS: Easy 60G; tough 200G • COST: 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15)
+ Stark post-apocalyptic world — visually and thematically.
+ Climbing, exploration, and combat offer some tense moments...
– ...that are hindered in a few ways — mainly by an annoying save system and a disappointing finale.
? What’s with the vague ending? We hoped for a lot more closure in the main story.
