I Am Alive

[Tanukitsune]

OK, now I'm halfway through the game and I'm halfway through WITH the game...

Toblix mention how the combat is, but it's not really combat at all, you just select with thugs you take out first and how and that's it. If you guessed right, you survive, if you didn't you die.

The worst is that you can't run away, I first found a few enemies next to checkpoint, and the checkpoint didn't even activate until everybody died! I tried to run away from the next enemy encounter, but the game didn't let me!

It's almost too easy, but equally easy to mess up due to the controls! If they approach you take the first one out with a quick attack, then kill the big guy if there is one so the smaller ones get scared, or threaten them into a fire or hole.

Also, the hero can't simply attack with the machete, but the enemies can?

I just don't feel no tension... The game keeps playing this annoying music the moment my stamina is less that 100% and I've already mentioned how "tense" the combat is...

I also hate how

the protagonist is too stupid to realize that the "strange meat" is human meat". Can't he put two and two together?

[Erkki]

So I just started with the PC version. Played in one sitting until the ship, but didn't go in yet. I kind of like it so far, although it surely has problems (incredibly annoying "tension" music when stamina goes low).

The first time I died and the game sent me back to the previous "save point" (which incredibly was way way before a major cut-scene after which even the fucking game title was displayed), I immediately turned the difficulty to easy so I have infinite "retries". This system is really stupid and I cannot fathom how they came up with that. The checkpoints are usually right before combat so quite ok, but with limited "retries", how the hell did they think: "the player already failed multiple times, lets punish him more and make him go back and redo the whole level." That's just intolerable and noone should ever play this on anything but easy mode (unless they are utter masochists) and have to think about "number of retries left".

The game is quite playable on easy. Also I wonder how anyone could get by with less bullets than I have so I'm curious whether the difficulty also affects how many bullets you can find?

The combat seems ok: it's like a mini-puzzle: figure out whom to attack first and then try to save bullets as much as you can. Of course you might fail to solve some of them the first time, but not as much as in Hotline Miami. I always try to go for the pistol-guy first, even if one with a knife starts pushing me -- I'll move over to the pistol guy anyway and "surprise kill" him. This seems to save me some bullets. I've never had a mutually-pointed guns situation where a bullet or two wasn't fired.

The thing with helping the other survivors is so-and-so. When a woman needed a first-aid kit for her son, there were 3 ambulance cars nearby. Instead, I found a first-aid kit lying in some hole in the road (I can believe the cars were stripped long ago, but still...). Some girl refuses to eat anything but a tomato. I'm never sure whether I can easily come back to them later or not, so I don't know whether I should search around and help them now or hope to find the thing they want later and come back.

[toblix]

You won't necessarily found whatever they want close by, so you're better off just exploring everything and hope you find whatever it is.

The thing I remember the most about this game is the weird thing that's sort of a spoiler to talk about, but which is also optional and missable, and also reveals a weird thing about the game world. Also I remember that the puzzle aspect of encounters turned out less interesting than they were probably aiming for.

[Thrik]

Wow I forgot all about this game. Now I think about it, isn't Last of Us kind of looking like everything this game hoped to be?

[Erkki]

The thing I remember the most about this game is the weird thing that's sort of a spoiler to talk about, but which is also optional and missable, and also reveals a weird thing about the game world.

What weird thing? I may have missed it. Just finished the game.

[toblix]

You know, the guy you can just barely see in the fog when you're crossing the thing?

[Erkki]

You know, the guy you can just barely see in the fog when you're crossing the thing?

I know him, but what weird thing did it reveal? I probably wasn't paying attention.

[toblix]

Well, only his existence. That's weird, though, right?

[Erkki]

I guess.

[edit] PS did you actually see the guy.

I found he was visible if I walked to the left, also took a screenshot. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=116657507

[toblix]

Shiiiiiiiiiiit. I guess he's a bit of what was cut from the game when they changed course. One of the A's.

[Tanukitsune]

I beat the game back when it came out on PSN and I don't remember this guy at all, but I only remember how much I hated the combat and the "tension" music.