Dystopian Video Editing in Full Release!

I'm always on the lookout for quirky games that offer up something different from the usual buffet of shooty/stabby games.  Several years ago, I came across Not for Broadcast, a game where you play the role of a video editor/producer for a fictional British news channel.  Even though it was in early access and wasn't complete, it had novel gameplay and a surprisingly good story.  Thanks to the pandemic, the full release of the game took considerably longer than what was originally intended, but now that the entire game is available, I wanted to update my review.

Pros:

+ The gameplay is deceptively easy, but to be truly good at it you need to be able to multi-task like a master.  Each segment is scored on an A-F scale--earning an A+ means that you have to make sure that you're keeping the shots interesting (by not remaining on one for more than 10 seconds and making sure that you're keeping the camera on whoever is talking), that you've avoided any potential interference, and that you've censored any naughty words that frequently fly out of the mouths of the many colorful guests on the show.

+ The story is well-balanced.  Parts of it are completely silly and they balance out the very serious undertone of the main story--the rise of a new political faction, called Advance, that has instituted a plan to "redistribute" the assets of the most wealthy members of society and create a more "equal" system.  Of course, not everyone is happy about the changes brought on by the new government and a radical opposition group plots to destroy the new system.

+ The acting is surprisingly good.  The main anchors--Jeremy and Megan in particular are a lot of fun and have very different personalities.  There's a lot of over-the-top goofiness and satire in the game, but the more serious moments are what stand out.  My personal favorite moment was with Stacey, the moody, foul-mouthed teenager.  At one point she shockingly defends Advance--it's totally unexpected and oddly powerful.

+ The choices you make impact the story and characters.  There are an amazing 14 epilogues with different endings.  That's a lot of replayability.  There are also text-based interludes between editing segments where you make story choices that have the potential to impact the story (these are much improved and fleshed out in the full release).

+ The full release has added in a challenge mode that offers up collectible items as a reward.  You have to edit specific segments with particularly tough variables thrown in--mega-interference, buttons that zap you (and you can only get zapped so many times), and many others.  I briefly tried it and it was pretty difficult.

+ There are lots of additional, fun features.  After you've completed a segment you can watch the entire broadcast and see your edits or you can view and listen to the "rushes"--everything that was going on off-camera to hear additional commentary and get some additional story elements from the characters in the game.

Cons:

- At the time I am writing this (about 2 weeks after the full release), there have been crashing issues.  I had them several times--the game would randomly crash to desktop at the end of a segment.  This really sucks because of the fact that the game only saves at specific points and you have to go back and replay the entire segment (and some segments can be almost 15 minutes long).  Hopefully with time this issue gets better.  There have already been some small fixes and patches.

Recommendation:

Not for Broadcast is a unique game that offers up challenging gameplay and a choice-filled story that manages to balance seriousness with absolutely zany goofiness.  If you're in the market for something different to play, I would highly recommend grabbing it.  The full release has only seen it get better and offer up even more of what was already very good.

 

Unexpected Update

My adventure with circa 2011 Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher 2 has drawn to a close.  I forgot how short that game feels when compared with the enormity of the third game (30 hour games just feel so short any more...go ahead and start thinking about all those debates about how long games should be).  All-in-all, I have always enjoyed the second game despite its clunky (obnoxiously so) combat.  Something I've found that I'm really good at in games that I've played through about a jillion times is somehow messing up outcomes--I got Miranda killed in a ME3 re-play and in TW2 I managed to miss an entire part of a questline in Vergen (which I realized...and then was annoyed, so went back and replayed like an hour plus of content).  So, now I'm done with TW2 and I was almost giddy when installing and starting up The Witcher 3 for the first time (*on my "new" computer--it's not so new now, but this is the first time I've played TW3 on it.  I have literally played through TW3 for an embarrassing amount of time that I won't state here).  It felt almost like stepping into Geralt's warm bath!  I had forgotten how beautiful everything is in TW3.

I had barely started Geralt's 8th (or 9th? or 10th?...yeah, I love TW3) adventure when I noticed multiple pending updates to games in my Steam library.  The one that got me the most excited was the release of the second episode for the silly, British video-editing indie game, Not For Broadcast (if you're not familiar with NFB, you can read my earlier review here).  The poor devs of NFB (like many other people in varying professions around the globe) have been trying to film and release the second part of the game in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.  They had issued a statement that said that the second installment of the early-access game would be out in January--a timeline that must've been pretty difficult considering the stricter lockdowns that seem to have been put into place in parts of Europe.  So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the second episode was out.

Upon booting up NFB, I was greeted with a welcome message that stated that my old saves might not be good anymore.  It had been quite awhile since I had played, so I decided that starting up a new game would probably be a good way to shake off the rust.  The welcome message had also boasted of new additions to the game that would be worth re-playing to check out--there are many new options for advertisements (the adverts--as the Brits call them--are hilarious) and I got the feeling that some of them had been reworked.  Another notable change is to the interference controls--before, you would have to steer a small dot through a mini-obstacle course while simultaneously monitoring the newscast.  It could be a bit challenging, but it wasn't generally too difficult.  The new interference system is more challenging--you have to use the middle mouse button and move your mouse to control the height and depth of "waves" which also move.  It is definitely more difficult than the previous version.

Replaying NFB has also made certain parts of the game seem...more relatable.  At a certain point the story in the game veers toward the bizarre as Britain winds up in lockdown.  They're not locked down due to a pandemic, but it felt much more relatable than it did the first time I played the game.  Part of the dialogue has also been reworked in the lockdown portion of the story to feel very much akin to our current situation (stay safe Brits!  I know things have been much stricter there)--there are jokes about making your own PPE (although the PPE they're referencing has nothing to do with preventing a virus from spreading).

There are several other notable additions--at the end of each day you see a screen that shows your grade on each segment, but now they've also added more details, like how much money you've earned (I believe I moved from "selling a kidney" to "broke ass poor").  It seems like they've removed the option to purchase items for the news studio (no great loss there).  The screen also includes information on changing attitudes from different groups--the Advance, your family, the rebellious rich....to name a few (I think that screen could use some more detail and explanation).  They've also changed up the sequencing in the story--before, you were offered the option to play the retro, charity- fundraising segment like midway through the story--and now, I haven't had it pop-up as an option (although, it might now be positioned between the first and second episodes).

If you're looking for something quirky to play, Not For Broadcast offers a silly story filled with oddly enjoyable multi-tasking challenges.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the second episode has in store--did the Snugglehugs apocalypse happen?  Has the lockdown ended?  Are there more horrible high school musical performances to suffer through?  I can't wait to find out!   

How the Sausage is Made--Not For Broadcast

Last weekend, Steam decided to offer up a quick, weekend Halloween themed sale.  I decided to knock a couple of spots off of my wishlist and grabbed Doom: Eternal and then waffled about buying a lower priced, more indie title (I generally like to grab a game that falls into more of a standard fare category and one that's a bit quirky and can offer something different).  After scrolling through the numerous indies that populate my wishlist, I decided to go with Not for Broadcast.

Not for Broadcast offers you the chance to go behind the scenes and play video editor for a fictional news program.  The core of the gameplay hinges around your ability to multi-task--you need to manage four different cameras, be ready to quickly censor any naughty words that might tumble from the mouths of many of the colorful guests, pick which advertisements will play during commercial breaks, and occasionally try to time camera changes to the tune of whatever random musical number is being performed or played.

There's also potentially some choice based elements that somehow influence the outcome in the game (I haven't quite figured it out).  In between broadcasts you are presented with text-based scenarios that revolve around the events revealed during the newscasts.  You get to choose how you want to deal with these events.

The game is set in Britain and many of the events depicted on the fictional news station revolve around the election of a new political party that is seeking to radically redistribute wealth.  On the very first broadcast you have to edit the major announcement from the whacky leaders of this party--a very serious woman and a very drunken older man who likes to keep you ready to smash the censor button--as they announce that they will be seizing the income of the wealthiest members of society and spreading it around.  It's fictional class warfare that plays out in a very silly way.  You get to choose how you present the ideas of this new party--you can choose to play the party advertisements during commercial breaks (or not); periodically you get to choose the images for headlines and you can either choose to pick favorable ones or ones that are less flattering.  Do you toe the party line or do you take a more rebellious stance?  The text-based scenarios that play out between broadcasts also challenge you to decide how you will deal with the challenges in the fictional world--Advent has revoked passports for the 1% and your brother-in-law shows up at your house asking if he can use yours to flee to country...do you give it to him?  Your son wants to join a new Advent "youth club" (umm, freaky?) and wants you to sign his permission slip?  Do you do it?

Through multiple broadcast scenarios you get to see how things  play out as people deal with the political upheaval.  On top of that, other whacky events also start impacting the nation (which I won't reveal because they are spoiler-y).  Let's just say that the 1% are not thrilled about their new status and things start getting chaotic.

Pros:

+ Gameplay is relatively simple, but to truly master it is challenging.  Each broadcast scenario is scored with a letter grade based on how well you've managed to edit it--to earn higher scores you need to make sure you're frequently switching shots (basically, you don't want to sit on one camera for more than 10 seconds) and how well you're managing to keep the shot on whoever is doing the talking (which can be quite chaotic).  On top of that you need to make sure that you're censoring any foul language used by the hosts or their many...interesting...guests.  There's a lot to manage and it can be quite hectic, but it's fun.

+ Manages to have a somewhat serious story but also to just be extremely goofy.  In one broadcast a group of high school students perform a truly horrible skit and musical number that is so cringey that you will be laughing.  In a sports-themed broadcast a very odd game with completely nonsensical rules is being played (and then gets stormed by a group of naked, rich protestors which means you have to do some quick editing to avoid any...parts...being broadcast live).

+ After you complete a broadcast you have the option of viewing the content you just produced.  It's enjoyable to see the finished product and does make you feel like you have legitimate skills (you don't).  There's also a fun option to be able to watch content that occurred on cameras that you weren't broadcasting--it gives you more insight into the story and just more silly scenarios to experience.

+ There are choices to be made throughout the different scenarios and they can impact what you see on the broadcasts.  I am still not completely clear about how much your choices impact the broadcasts--I played through the scenarios and made different choices but didn't see a big difference (I'm not sure that I picked enough divergent options though).  There's replayability built into the gameplay.

+ Challenge modes.  After you've completed the full scenario (what's currently available) you unlock a variety of challenges that revolve around editing scenarios with certain restrictions in place.  In one scenario all helpful labeling on the broadcast booth is removed; in another there's an electrical short that means you have to be selective about which buttons you press (or you get zapped to death); and there are many more.

Cons:

- I didn't have any serious crashing, but I did have a couple of crashes.  Some of the broadcasts take awhile to play through so it could be quite frustrating to have to go back and replay them.  I enjoyed the gameplay a lot though so I wasn't too troubled by having to replay.

- It's currently in early access and is only partially complete.  The pandemic has also set back their production schedule.  The good news is that the second part of the game seems to be back in production.  As with any early access games, it's a work in progress.

Final thoughts:

If you're a fan of unique games that have something new to offer, I would recommend checking out Not for Broadcast.  Even though it's in early access, and isn't complete, it's a breath of fresh air.  The gameplay is a lot of fun and the stories within the game are a perfect balance between being serious and being goofy.  I'm looking forward to the second part of the game being added and to find out what happens in faux-Britain.