I Am Alive is Alive. Here's how it's looking so far

I Am Alive wouldn't be the first game to pull the great "I Technically Exist But You'll Never Hear Anything About Me" Trick, and it probably won't be last either. First announced in 2008, this intriguing survival adventure was never heard from again until very recently - I guess we can be thankful it's only been three years. The real test though is whether the time spent incognito was worth it. Got to feel a little bit sorry for original developer Darkworks though, as they've essentially had their game taken away from them, but from what we've seen so far Ubisoft Shanghai are doing a good job.
 

It's a dog eat dog world

The basic concept is still intact - an incident, constantly referred to as 'The Event' brought the world too it's knees. Wiping out most of the life on earth and making conditions extremely inhospitable, it's a struggle to survive and social order is no more. The game starts as the protagonist reaches the outskirts of his fictional home town, after having spent the last year trying to get back after The Event in order to find his wife and child. However, since the event has basically turned everyone into thugs and douche-cocks, you'll basically have to fight your way through town.

Funnily enough though, this isn't necessarily an action-driven experience. The developers will tell you that the game is basically comprised of three main elements - action, puzzles and surviving. The puzzle element is more navigation than anything else - given that The Event completely effed-up the topography and layout of, well, everything, you'll have to traverse many an obstacle to get to where you need to go. A lot of sections are 'open' as well, so they'll be multiple routes.

You're only doing this 'puzzling' some of the time however, as not all of the areas you travel through are that complex (you spend time underground, for instance), so you'll have your energies mainly focused on the other two - survival and action. In I Am Alive, you have a health and a Stamina bar. All actions cost stamina, although some more than most, and if you're doing 'extreme' actions (like climbing a bridge), your stamina gets depleted significantly and can't replenish. If you run out of Stamina, you enter a kind of last ditch effort mode, and if you're still no in a position to rest by then you die. You can replenish health and stamina using items, and other items can help you with extraneous actions - the main crux of this survival element is inventory management, and making sure you have enough supplies.



This ties into the action elements. Weapons and ammo are scarce, and you'll most often than not find yourself using machetes and bows as opposed to firearms. It's not about moving through areas and blasting everyone you see, but the tactical application of force. Someone with a handgun is a big deal in this game, and you can use one to intimidate anyone who gets in your way, even if it's not loaded. If you stick around and not shoot anyone though, people will eventually call your bluff. Using weapons like the machete also gets you do special mêlée attacks, even when a person is right in front of you, although that will provoke the others into attacking too.

There's a lot of 'old school' vibes in this game - the environment based puzzles, the inventory management... you even get a limited amount of retries before you have to start all over again (although there are opportunities to get more). It's still early days at the moment, but the demo we saw (no hands-on, unfortunately) looked as a good as any AAA retail title. The developers tell us that this is going to be a massive game compared to your average digital-only affair but ultimately we will have to wait and see.
 

"Man, I used to eat there... really good noodles"

We'll also have to take Ubisoft's word that the original concept wasn't as good as what's been shown to us now. The only major concern is whether the 'downgrade' to a digital-only title has limited I Am Alive's potential, but Ubisoft seem to be throwing a lot of resources at this one. We have a feeling this game my yet surprise people though, and it'll be the little things that will help it shine. The real tragedy is of course the lack of a PC version, but then Ubisoft's support of the platform has been shaky of late. I Am Alive is due out on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live in 2012.

Most Anticipated Feature: No single thing sticks out at us at the moment, but AI behaviour seems to be very good at the moment.