You play Alex Winston, a new staff member working in the broadcast booth of the National Nightly News, a major evening news programme in 1980s Britain. It\u2019s your job to control the broadcast, picking the cameras to show the show to the public, bleeping the swear words, and playing appropriate adverts. This is interspersed with a choose-your-own-adventure style text driven sections between broadcasts in which you deal with Alex\u2019s family life, finances, and other worldly events that directly impact them. Summing <\/span>Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i> up in this way does it a disservice though.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s worth pointing out that this game is <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> political in terms of its story, and if you\u2019re one of those \u2018keep politics out of my video games\u2019 people, then you\u2019re going to really hate this. During your first broadcast, you\u2019ll handle the announcement that a new government has come to power in a shock election victory, and that their first actions have been more than a little controversial. Before long you\u2019ll be managing reports that involve an uprising, international wars, and a thrilling new sport. Your choices about what\u2019s shown on camera, what you choose to censor, and the adverts you play will determine the public\u2019s view of the government and the growing rebellion. You can shape the future world through careful use of the media. If that\u2019s not a message about the current state of the world, then I don\u2019t know what is.<\/span><\/p>\n In the sections between these, you\u2019ll have short text sections in which you influence your family life. Your partner, kids, and extended family all have lives that will be affected by the choices you make here too. Some of them may have happy endings dictated by the choices you make here and in the studio. Others may not, so think carefully about how you proceed. Much like the modern classic <\/span>Papers, Please<\/span><\/i>, you\u2019ll earn money when you work in the broadcast room, so maybe you\u2019ll want to make choices you don\u2019t like, just so your family can afford to get by, but potentially at a cost to the greater population. It\u2019s a wonderful reshaping of Lucas Pope\u2019s minimalist game of political upheaval.<\/span><\/p>\n The actual gameplay in the broadcast room has you managing multiple things at once in a <\/span>Five Nights At Freddy\u2019s<\/span><\/i> style room. In front of you is a desk, including four small screens that you can select between for live broadcast, a live screen, and a broadcast screen which goes to the public. Your censor button will bleep words you don\u2019t want to go live, which are indicated by a red bar on the sound wave above it. Then there\u2019s a broadcast strength metre which measures interference. Occasionally you\u2019ll need to manipulate this to keep the signal clear for the viewers. You can also select which adverts to show during the breaks from here from a selection you decide on before starting the broadcast. There are also power switches to the side that can be affected by events throughout the game, and a phone should the boss need to call you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s not a huge amount here, but you constantly have things thrown at you. You\u2019ll need to control the screens whilst handling interference at the same time as dealing with the censor button. It can be a lot to take in at times, but on the normal difficulty I managed to get by well enough, which is a good thing as a decent performance means you get paid better, helping you during those family life segments. Then again, knowing that you can manipulate the populace, perhaps you\u2019ll actively decide to perform poorly. Occasionally <\/span>Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i> will throw additional spanners in the works, such as broken buttons, musical interludes, and overheating machinery to keep things fresh. Each broadcast has its own twist, so you\u2019re unlikely to get fed up with the main mechanics.<\/span><\/p>\n The gameplay and story kept me engaged, but it\u2019s the acting that really brings all this to life. It\u2019s absolutely excellent throughout. Characters are either genuinely likeable or caricatures of celebrities, and they\u2019re all portrayed brilliantly. From the wonderfully snarky news anchor, to the drama obsessed maths teacher, you\u2019ll likely find more than one person in this story to root for, with all of them coming to a different end depending on how you play. Not only is it well filmed and brilliantly acted, but <\/span>Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i> is also genuinely funny. There were a <\/span>lot<\/span><\/i> of occasions in which I burst out laughing at a line or entire scene featuring some hilariously written character, and whilst not every scene is flawless, there\u2019s a lot that\u2019s wonderfully done.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is a game that\u2019s spent over two years being filmed and put together, and that includes the lockdowns during the covid era <\/span>\u2014 something that\u2019s brilliantly parodied during one segment of the game \u2014 and the level of effort and commitment really shows. Apparently it\u2019s broken a world record for having the largest amount of live action footage in a video game, at nearly 43 hours worth of filmed content. That\u2019s incredibly impressive considering the global pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not all comedy though. The opening of the game issues a warning that there are scenes that could be distressing, and this is certainly true. Some of the live moments are quite hard hitting <\/span>\u2014 which are again brilliantly acted \u2014 and feature certain events that I won\u2019t go into to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say, there are moments that are quite bleak when you consider the modern political climate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re not long into 2022, but I\u2019m already planning on keeping <\/span>Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i> in mind for when I start thinking about my favourite games of this year, and I\u2019ve not even gone into the fact there are 14 significantly different endings, a challenge mode, and even a bonus telethon to unlock and play through. It\u2019s an incredibly well done product, with a setup that you simply can\u2019t find anywhere else, and an absolute truckload of content to enjoy. I implore you to try out <\/span>Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i> \u2014 there\u2019s even a free prologue available if you want to give it a try first \u2014 because more games like this need to be made, ones with a creative soul and a serious message.<\/span><\/p>\n Not For Broadcast<\/span><\/i><\/a> is out now on Steam.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n![\"Not](\"https:\/\/s3-b3bucket.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/03195855\/20220126214310_1.jpg\")
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