I Am Alive: PS3 Game Review

Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PS3

Let's be honest here - who of us would survive in a post apocalyptic world if we had to?

Surely, many of us would quiver like jellies and crumble to the floor in the foetal position. That's certainly the challenge facing you as the player of new survival game, I Am Alive.

You're a survivor as dust swirls around streets, littered with cars and no easy option of escape. But armed with the overbearing desire to save your family, you're heading out into the wilds, risking what you can and scrounging whatever you can to survive in this grey, grainy world where shocks lurk around every corner.

This is no Resident Evil style carnage - society's broken down and groups of survivors are out to get what they can and fight whenever necessary in this accomplished game from Ubisoft.

But as you head further into the city, first off getting to your old apartment, it soon becomes clear this isn't a game where you hack and shoot your way to survival; this is a game which really taxes the grey matter and compels you to think about your every move and to plan a strategy; it's clever stuff.

Case in point - you have a gun, but initially no bullets - so you're without a weapon per se, but you're not powerless; because pointing that weapon at someone approaching you has the effect of intimidation...However, what happens when they realise you're without bullets?

It's questions like this and having to use your brain that make I Am Alive such a successful and atmospheric experience; while it's not ideal that your stamina metre depletes so quickly (rendering simple tasks like climbing and running away from trouble occasionally difficult to achieve without dying), you begin to learn the quirks of the game's format and adapt your play to them.

Occasionally though, there are frustrations to the play - sometimes you can run to the edge of an area with ease and at other times, the computer stops your character dead in a place you'd thought you'd be able to access as the screen carries on - eg occasionally you can jump gaps and other times, while the gaps are the same, you can't jump over them. It's a minor niggle but one which, from time to time, prevents fluid gameplay.

You'll need patience and determination to get through this and while it can occasionally be frustrating and graphically lacking, I Am Alive is certainly an immersive game which will grip you in its tense paranoia like vice before letting you go.

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