I remember the first trailer. I was psyched. Then nothing for the longest time. Then another trailer! ...Then more nothing. When it finally hit, I wasn't sure what to expect. XBL content instead of a full game? That should've been a big hint. Still, the game had a solid developer backing it. Unfortunately, you cannot base a game's quality on their developer. There's just too little quality here for what was promised and the cost. The graphics are decidedly last gen. The controls are buggy. The AI is far too easy. The climbing sequences, while challenging, are tedious. The story is linear. All and all it's just not that good.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I have found over the years that if an upcoming title offers a demo on XBL, it will usually be pretty good. This is not one of those cases. I hadn't heard anything about this game till the free demo popped up on my welcome screen. I DL'd it and gave it a try, only to find it frustrating and a boring. The idea is a cool one, a post apocalyptic world, and you have been trying to get home to your wife and daughter. It's taken you a year to walk/scavenge your way across the county, and you start the demo just a few blocks from your home. You have to cross a wrecked suspension bridge. This introduces you to the stamina aspect of your character. climbing and running drain your stamina, and as you climbing around the bridge you discover that if you take to long climbing around, you will fall to your death when your stamina runs out. This isn't a puzzle/maze: find your way before stamina runs out. There is only one path to follow, and just enough stamina to get through to the other side. So what's the point? Where is the challenge? This is simply a boring time sink to make the game longer. A warn out trick that should have been retired a long time ago. Get rid of the stamina bar, make more than one path to get across. Unfortunately, everything so far is just like this. Looking at your map you see about 1 square mile of city blocks to explore, and multiple ways to get from point A to point B. This is false, the deeper into the map you get all path save one are blocked by obstacles. Your encounters with other people are also set pieces with only one way forward. There are no choices, there is no multiple ways to "skin a cat". On top of this is a limited number of retries. WHEN you fail, and you will, you burn one of your 3 retries. You can find more along the way, but the whole thing seems silly. The game promises scavenging, but so far there is none. You can not search the bodies, you can not search the cars and trucks, you can not go into any building and search for items. This is an extremely old game dynamic that is boring at this point. Follow the one path in front of you, push the correct button when we tell you... no thinking required. In this day and age, when so much innovation in game design has come before, to fall back on stupid tricks and game design that was getting stale in the 1990's should be embarrassing. When you promise me a pot apocalyptic world to explore and scavenge, the idea of stealth or attack (choice) to deal with people I encounter, but then deliver a no open world, no choice in dealing with environment and dangers, you will not get my money for your crappy game.… Expand

I play on consoles sometimes but when I have a choice I much rather play on PC, so I was a little disappointed when I've heard this game will eventually will not be released for PC. So I tried the XBOX demo, to see if IGN were exaggerating. And they were... 4.5 is way more than this crap deserves. Graphic is pathetic, gameplay is boring, and the stamina mechanism they invented there is a joke. If you yet insist on trying that thing, do yourself a favor and play the demo first, it may spare you a redundant expanse. I will finish with a personal message for Stanislas Mettra, regarding his comment about "PC gamers are **** about there being no version for them", you may definitely
keep this piece of crap to yourself, we (PC games) don't need it.… Expand

Whilst i like the setting and graphics, the combat is worse than any game i've played when taking on more than one enemy, I try and stab/hack someone and by the time i've raised my arm the enemy has either stabbed me, shot me or his friend has ran up and hacked me, i point my gun at them and the either shoot me dead instantly or when i go to strike one when they surrender, his friend hacks me, or god forbid theres 2 enemies with guns, i suprise kill one then the other just shoots me, this happens again and again until either my 3 lives are up and i restart the entire mission or i luck it out and kill them after 9-10 attempts to move onto the next set of enemies and it's the same story, even taking out a single person with a gun is proving to me near impossible,… Expand

This game sounds good on paper and it LOOKS good from a level design perspective. DO NOT take the demo for anything. I played the demo and thought it would be great. It's not. The IGN review is on target. The game is awful. Bland looking and BORING. The game is simply not fun. Worst purchase I've made in a while. Would not reccomend this crap to anyone.

I Am Alive is a strange game which is good, but when you try to play it the game can immediately turn the player off with frustration. The climbing mechanic is interesting, but there isn't much explanation on what to do first time around, so you can die and not know why. Also, when climbing there isn't much freedom like there is in Assassin's Creed which was disappointing. Here is where I got completely turned off, combat. What moron has a gun with no ammo? That's right you! The game punishes the player from the start by not having any means of defense. Your gun can be used to scare people, but that's about it. My first encounter with an NPC was dumb because there wasn't enough info on what I should do, so I walked away. My second encounter basically had me die multiple times because of the same reason, with no explanation on what I was doing wrong then I got frustrated and turned off the game. For what it's worth, I Am Alive had a good atmosphere although the graphics looked really dated. But, user experience is frustrating, the climbing mechanics fail and there isn't enough information on how to play during encounters. I Am Alive is a make-or-brake game and with me it felt broken. I don't recommend getting this, unless you are a persistent gamer!… Expand

There is nothing I like more in a game than having to constantly wrestle with the controls in order to get my character to climb up onto a ledge before their stamina runs out. And when I am finished with that fun and games the experience is further enhanced by the countless retries needed in order to work out just how to kill 4 bad guys with just the one bullet before giving up and considering backtracking episodes in the vain hope of salvaging just one extra bullet. There is challenge and there is utter frustration - Ubisoft guess which side of the fence this game falls!… Expand

Great game with real atmosphere & enjoyable mechanics....until the appalling ending that is. An ending so lazy, unimaginative, and ill-conceived that it completely ruins an otherwise enjoyable game and any goodwill I may have had towards it.

I basically forked out 1800 points (very fecking expensive!) for a game with no ending just a five second cut-scene with some ham-fisted "did he or didn't he" hinting and a big fat BUY OUR NEXT GAME TO FIND OUT.

I most certainly will not be buying your next game.… Expand