Never Alone is a heartbreaking game, but not just because it's a particularly sad one. No, it's because the game's concept is admirable--a platformer steeped in the culture and folklore Native Alaskan Iupiaq people--but the game itself is shabby. Included in Never Alone are short video vignettes comprising interviews with Iupiaq elders, and beautiful footage of the real-world locations you visit; from these, it's clear that great respect was paid to Iupiaq cultural touchstones and their translation into game mechanics. These videos are unlocked as you progress through the game, and do an excellent job of giving a cultural context to the level you are about to play. Never Alone has a genuine and honest desire for you to learn about these people, their way of life, and their methods of storytelling--and by the end of the game, you walk away with an appreciation for all three, but you resent the journey required to get there.

Never Alone is an adventure-packed game. In the beginning of this video game we quickly learn that the main character (a young Iupiat girl) is not like any other "modern" girl today. She is in fact a brave little girl. We also learn that she is apart of the Native Alaskan Iupiaq people. She starts to realize (as the cut scenes tells us) that her village and people are in danger because of this blizzard that is consistently blowing massive gusts of wind and freezing everyone in the village. The blizzard went on and on, so she ended up journeying out into the open, vast areas of Alaska. Suddenly after the first cut scene that explained all of this you notice the little girl being chased by a polar bear and the game shows you the standard controls. You run away from the polar bear but get trapped - what happens next? All I will tell you is that this game is phenomenal and really gets you hooked if you play for 15/30 minutes straight. I won't spoil the rest for all of you as that'd be rude, but I suggest you get this amazing game.

This game comes with single player only - no multiplayer, which is unfortunate but the outstanding single player/story line makes up for it. The single player really describes and puts in perspective what these people went through and still go through today. They are strong, brave people who we (*Cough* Americans) should look up to. The gameplay is just really impressive and I'll go more into details below.

The graphics of Never Alone aren't the greatest, but they certainly aren't the worst. From the snow drizzling down to the ground to the characters and animals themselves, the graphics aren't ultimately that bad compared to other games. Sure, the faces and clothing on the characters look like wrinkly garbage bags but the snow falling down, the animals, the gusts of wind, and even the cracks in the ice - it's all so majestic! I truly love the simplistic design of this game's graphics and indeed enjoy staring at them for 30 minutes straight.

The controls aren't the worst, but they are out of key a little bit. To start off, the jumping needs to be explained a little more - as it only states "Tap X to Jump". Where as if you hold it (which you need to in like chapter two) you can jump a longer distance. Then, there are the mechanics of it all. Sometimes it glitches out while your character is struggling to recover from an almost drastic fall and apparently your character lets go of the ledge - congratulations, you are now in a bottomless pit, restarting from the last checkpoint. That is really my only complaint about the controls, but other than that it's all nice and dandy. Really smooth (most of the time) but could have used some more work, especially with the joysticks, but I'm not going to get into that!

Gameplay: 10/10 - Love the story-line and how the game 'plays'.
Graphics: 8/10 - Could be better, although not the worst. Simplistic.
Controls: 6/10 - Needs some improvement with jumping and joysticks.
Overall: 7/10