I am Alive

Prepare yourself for I Am Alive! Easily one of the best games to come out in 2012, I know that’s a tall order, but it really capitalized on the post apocalypse genre without including the tired trope of zombies. Get ready to enter a world after a catastrophic disaster known as “the Event” wipes out 90% of the human race. This game is heavy on a unique form of resource management and exploration, providing a highly rewarding gameplay that you don’t really get anywhere else. If any of that sounds interesting to you, then keep reading as we get into the details.

The Gameplay

The gameplay of I Am Alive focuses largely on resource management and exploration. You play as the nameless protagonist who must navigate the dangerous new world to find his family. The resource management leans heavily into combat, as finding bullets, food or bandages is very difficult, you must weigh the options of getting into a fight or not. Forcing the player to make snap cost-benefit analysis to getting into a fight was utterly brilliant and truly made you feel as though there were consequences to your decisions, as bullets can also be used for other things than just killing people. The exploration aspect had the player climbing around with a dedicated stamina meter, which depleted the more you climbed. To make sure that you could complete a climb without falling, you would need to manage that gauge constantly, sometimes stopping to have a snack or something to get more energy. I found this to be particularly thrilling, again playing into resource management. There is something about it that is strongly reminiscent of traversal in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Combat plays a massive part in this as well. You will encounter several unsavory characters who want to take what you’ve got. You can’t shoot them all as you may not have the bullets for it, or any bullets at all for that matter. Interestingly, the enemies don’t know if you’ve got bullets or not so when you pull out a gun, they will react with the appropriate amount of fear, giving you a chance to control the situation and find alternative ways to dispatch them. The gameplay makes all the encounters you find an interesting little puzzle. It reminds me a lot of Deus ex: Human Revolution in that manner.

The Story

This story is a fantastic post-apocalyptic title that doesn’t focus on zombies. Instead, its about a man looking for his family in a world devastated by a cataclysm. It allows the player and narrative to focus much more on the human condition and how people change, or become more like they really are, in this unique and terrifying environment. Think of the missions in The Last of Us where you don’t deal with the fungus people, it’s a lot like that for the whole game and its really fun.

Visuals

The visuals of this game are very stylized in regards to the color scheming. It really captures that desaturated look that post-apocalypse films have. Everything looks like it’s been covered with dust and left out for months. Which is essentially true. Otherwise, everything looks great, the character models and brilliant and the world is atmospheric and well-designed.

Pros

• Excellent Story
• Brilliant visuals
• Interesting setting
• Doesn’t rely on zombies

Cons

• It’s a bit short