Alive 4 Ever Review: A Decapitatingly Great Time

Alive 4 Ever is one of several dual (virtual) control stick, top-down shooters in the App Store. The success of titles like iDracula and Minigore has prompted thdevelopers to have a go at the genre, as the method of control seems to be one of the most effective on the platform. Developed by Meridian Digital Entertainment, Alive 4 Ever distinguishes itself from the masses in a few ways, and thus I believe it to be one of the better offerings of its kind.

In A4E, you control one of four vastly different-looking protagonists with a common penchant for zombie-killing. The story goes something like this: a malicious virus spread across the States, mowing down the population and eventually resurrecting the bodies of the deceased to form an evil zombie coalition. Clearly, we won’t be awarding any points for originality. As seems to be a common problem with foreign developers, the text suffers from poor translation. For the life of me, I can’t understand why developer’s don’t run this by someone before submitting to Apple.

A4E expands on the established top-down shooter category with a few nice innovations. Each of the 30 available levels has a different objective, which include killing a certain number of zombies, rescuing hostages, surviving for a specified duration and collecting vaccines. In addition, challenge objectives ramp up the difficulty and replayability factor.

Once you’ve completed a level, you are awarded experience points, cash money and new equipment depending on whether you’ve managed to conquer the ancillary objectives. Upon leveling up, you are allotted ability points which you can use to augment the permanent stats of your character. These include maximum HP, bullets, critical hit rate and curing efficiency.  Money is used to purchase new weapons with varying attributes which you can equip from the store. Primary and secondary weapon slots are available. Finally, three items of equipment can be worn at once, and offer stat-boosting attributes such as faster reload times, additional HP and percentage increases to experience point accumulation. The wealth of RPG elements render A4E a formidable time-sucker, and really immerses the player in the game world.

Another point of immersion is A4E’s haunting soundtrack. It’s often said that the creak of an old door or barely audible pant of a some unseen creature can do more for your heart-rate than a graphic depiction ever can, and A4E applies this principle well. The in-game audio is correspondingly spot-on. The rumbling chains of machine gun fire and disturbing moans of bullet-riddled zombies never feel repetitive or over-done. And this isn’t to say that A4E isn’t visually packing. Dynamic lighting effects, large maps and hand-drawn character models all contribute to A4E’s satisfying package. I experienced no slow down on my iPhone 3G, even in the middle of a gigantic zombie swarm.

A4E’s control scheme is no different from the other offerings in its category. The dual-stick controls work without quirk, and the additional buttons to access your objectives, pick up materials and manually reload are similarly responsive.

One of the few criticisms I had with A4E is its difficulty. Inherently, there’s no problem. Advancing through levels is a considerable task, but the challenge progresses at a healthy rate. The frustration kicks in when you hit the mid-teens. The difficulty becomes such that you’re encouraged to replay the earlier levels in order to supplement your attributes and equipment. Replaying levels over and over is bound to feel like a chore.

A4E also offers ranking statistics and co-op multiplayer via Bluetooth. Unfortunately I was unable to test this feature as I couldn’t any other zombie-killers in my vicinity, but it “works great” according to Touch Arcade.

Overall, Alive 4 Ever is a great addition to the top-down shooter library. Clean graphics, immersing sound design and a bevy of level objectives render the title a great value at $2.99. And Meridian has already submitted an update to the App Store.

Special Note: Sam Sles will also be hosting his articles at www.thumbspree.com, a site solely dedicated to iPhone gaming. Don’t worry though, he still has POWSO pumping through his veins.