a game that has so much to say but ultimately, says nothing

the mechanics are fun! even in the easiest difficulty, there is some difficulty that keeps you on your toes. Some of the segments were picky on the cameras and the musical bits were nonsensical but it was really a delight to fiddle around with.

the story...the complexities they tried to take tackle at times feel...misconceived. one thing the game gets right: major news networks must be neutral. you do need to show both sides and in a country like (Not) Britain and United States, this is a problem. i do believe you need to show facts, not one side over the other, and that was expressed in my gameplay. But the politics of the game is so painfully centrist it made me roll my eyes more times or laugh that I thought it would.

despite on your politics in real life, making both sides of this games conflict so cartoonishly backwards in their respected camps just really kills the underlining conversations to be had on their actions and what they believe in. Maybe that is the point, and the satirical British writing falls short on me, but it just was more grating to me than intriguing. But there are moments of true genuinity, true writing chops were I'm sitting there like, "Why cant MOST of this game be like this." (also at some point the game really tried to push "not all rich people are evil" and i sat at my desk laughing for a few minutes in a call).

I just...I dont know. I dont hate the game, nor do I like it. It's hard to pin point my exact feelings, but it is certainly an intriguing game. I do see myself playing it in the future to see what would happen in the other endings.

One thing though, the amount of LGBT rep made me smile a lot.

What a wonderful game! It's so very versatile. On one hand, it's this whacky comedy about the media and how dumb it kind of is. It also delights in how media is made, and lets you be the cameraman. It's also in a lineage of "work games" where you do seemingly mundane tasks as fun. And that's all neat.

But it's also a political commentary about extremism. It's a deliberate take-down of propaganda. It's a political drama. It's a deliberate view of censorship and its consequences. It's a moral choice simulator. And it's an effort to put the player in a situation where there really are no right answers.

What delighted me most was reaching the end, and being shown the epilogue screen. I knew there would be multiple endings. I did not know there would be FOURTEEN endings. The nuance allowed and the scope of the editing you can perform within the game is wild, and I love that.

I also deeply think about the visual novel scenes that fill the in-between of broadcasts, where you get to roleplay having your family. You're given multiple choices throughout, and many will leave you wondering, "could I have made a difference?" or "did I do something wrong?" Not in a bad way, but rather, in a way that makes you question the effects of your choices in a really fun way, one that sincerely makes me want to see if I could have had different outcomes. It's also an extremely brilliant contrast, between the somewhat unsavory, censory work you have to do, and also the societal urge to "tow the party line" not for the sake of the party, but for your own sake.

And let's not even mention the actual design of the game. The various minigames and mechanics you have to dabble with are silly and fun. Flipping switching, fighting broken tech, and micromanaging your broadcasts is all just good fun. And the acting, despite it being very b-list on purpose, is actually well done and sincere. Huge props to all the actors, especially in such a broad script! Everyone brings their best to their roles.

It's all just delightful. In a time where people constantly bemoan "politics in my games!" Not For Broadcast gleefully plays around in being entirely about politics. And although it can be a bit hammy and silly at times, its messages are sincere, and it expresses them fantastically. This is a great narrative experience, and one of the weird little games I could basically recommend to anyone, and is one of the few games I would recommend story mode, especially after your first playthrough, as you can go explore all the other options the game offers. Great stuff all around.

Now before I begin I just want to clarify this:
This is strictly my own opinion. If you disagree with me, more power to you. Just keep the comments civil and respectful.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to
GAME MODE: ON!

Well, the new year is here, we're ready to start off fresh and hopefully, we can actually meet our goals before next January.

So what better way to begin things than with a game that deals with anxiety-inducing subject matter, overwhelming politics, plenty of fBLEEPes shown on live TV and enough foul-mouthed Brits to give the entire Inbetweeners franchise a run for it's money.

I'm talking about Not For Broadcast, an independent full-motion video game developed by NotGames and published by tinyBuild.
When first announced back in 2019 and went to early access the following year, the game has garnered some attention due to it's ambitious gameplay style and humorous usage of FMV sequences. It was quite the interesting little game and people couldn't wait to get a hold of the full experience.
However, it took longer than expected. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, production on the game was halted and then spread around until finally, it saw a final release in 2022 on PC before eventually transitioning to consoles the following year. Not to mention, there was a VR version that came out for Meta Quest 2 and later on, PlayStation 5.

Reviews were very positive at the time with people praising the game for it's multi-layered storyline, innovative gameplay mechanics and comical writing even if some took issue with it's more dissonant tone.

After playing the game for almost a full week myself, I can safely say that while it's not a flawless masterpiece, there is alot to love about Not For Broadcast so let's just shut up and get to it already.

STORY & CHARACTERIZATION:
Taking place in a fictional country similar to the United Kingdom and set between 1984 and 1991, you play as Alex Winston, a janitor working for the Channel One station who finds himself being handed the position of broadcast editor and you now have the responsibility of handling the news program. On top of managing your home life, you also have the burden of deciding what needs to be shown on live television and what needs to be bleeped out all the while political unrest is gripping the nation which could very well lead to one of multiple outcomes depending on whose side you're on.

I understand that politics in general have become a very unpopular subject in recent years, I've made a few statements about how useless they are myself, but regardless, politics are here for some kind of reason so really, there's no chance of things changing for the better and our leaders are gonna continue wasting everybody's time all the while doing jack-sBLEEPt about issues that actually matter. Seriously, count how many conferences our governments have had about climate change and how barely anything has been done about it, I fBLEEPin' dare you.
But regardless, if you're gonna do a satire on politics, you have to at least make it worth my time. Thankfully, this game manages to pull it off in many ways. For one thing, there's so many moments that are absolutely hilarious and I just ended up laughing at people either going nuts over silly things or just preferring to go off their rockers for the hell of it. But while the game has a habit of being hilarious, it doesn't forget to take itself seriously as the story deals with the cons of politics in a harsh fashion that feels almost too close to home and it also helps that it doesn't feel one-sided. Regardless of how you feel about the left or the right, both factions have a habit of making decisions that cause more harm than good and try to hide it under the facade of good intentions. Sure, one side maybe worse than the other but that doesn't make up for the atrocities committed by both parties, does it? Violence shouldn't have to be the only resort and no one, especially innocent people, have to die to either prove a point or get what you want.
During my playthrough, I tried to be as neutral as possible which seemed like a lost cause in this day and age but hey, I stood by my beliefs that there are better ways we can resolve current issues and we shouldn't need another fBLEEPin' World War to sort out whatever political conflicts there are at the moment no matter how big they are. But of course, after everything I've done to try and not pick a side, it doesn't matter anyway since in one of the fourteen epilogues I've gotten, the nation could still be going to shit as we know it.
Yeah, as you play through the game, your choices do have consequences which can affect your family, the studio and whatever's going on in the world. It's quite harrowing trying to decide what's best for those you have faith in and who deserves to be mocked and left to go broke and can make for an investing multi-pathed story. Whatever decision you make, you can always have a good laugh, have a good gasp and maybe a good sigh of relief if you're lucky enough.
Part of the story's enjoyment comes from the actors in the FMV sequences. Obviously, the entire cast comprises of nobodies but even then, everybody gives 110% in every scene imaginable. Not only are they able to deliver the comedic aspect very well but when they need to take things seriously, shit does start to hit the fan. Special mention goes out to Paul Baverstock who plays Jeremy Donaldson, the male co-anchor of the news, Jonathan Hawkins as Alan James, a narcissistic conspiracy theorist, and notable soap opera regular Roger Alborough as Peter Clement, a former television presenter turned politician who co-leads the governmental party ADVANCE alongside Prime Minister Julia Salisbury.

GAMEPLAY & CONTROLS:
In a setup similar to that of Five Nights at Freddy's, you're pretty much stuck in this one space looking at different camera angles and sorting out various controls. But instead of warding off killer animatronics, you're trying to censor as much swearing as you can all the while keeping an eye on what you're showing.
As the broadcast editor, you have the power to make the news program look as good as possible. You can switch between four different camera angles, try to prevent interference, apply stock audience sounds when necessary, censor naughty language(and other bits one side or the other doesn't want to hear) and play some ads at the end of each segment. Occasionally, you will have to deal with a few annoying issues such as electrical surges that can shock you if you're not too careful, overheating power-lines that can be cooled off with the fan, the occasional power outages and conks and a bunch of murder-crazy toys that need to be fended off. As the game progresses, new regulations are put into place which can make your job much harder depending on the difficulty you've selected so it's best to concentrate on the task at hand because if you neglect to censor a number of swears, stay on a shot for too long or play an ad too early or don't play it at all, you're pretty much fired. There's also moments where you have to make a tough decision that could further make or break one group or the other which could either fuck up the nation or hopefully make it better by the end.
Since I was playing on a console instead of PC, it took a bit of time getting used to the controls but once I got the hang of it, it's not as bad or as hard as it seems. Kinda like riding a bike, you'll get there soon. Basically, you use the left analog stick to look around the area while using the D-pad to select a switch or a tape. You use the interface buttons to switch between the different screens, you use the R1 button to censor and the other trigger and bumpers are for controlling other mechanics on the broadcasting mixer. A bit complex but again, you will get used to it.
There were a couple times when the control would lock up and I was unable to switch the power on in time for the broadcast and there was one time when the whole game would freeze but after a restart, it should resolve itself fine. It's thankfully a very rare occurrence but it is worth noting.
Once you're done with the broadcast, you can go down to the archives to look at what you've done so far. You can look at a full broadcast, rushes of said broadcast or the adverts that go along with it.
On top of that, there's also these visual novel-type segments where in-between the broadcasting levels, you're attempting to sort your life out and your relationship with your family. Again, your choices when they do pop up do matter and it can either benefit you or cost you dearly.
Finally, there's the challenge mode where you can replay any broadcast and add modifiers to earn rewards once beaten. That, and there's some extra broadcast levels, some of which are DLC with the last one due to be out later this year.

GRAPHICS & PRODUCTION VALUE:
Besides the well-done FMV sequences, the actual in-game graphics are alright. They're nothing to go crazy over but serviceable enough for the type of experience you're in for.
Aside from the decent artistry, we also have a solid soundtrack composed by Jason Orbaum and Christopher Brown where the score not only compliments the story's tone but there's also some banging' musical numbers that can either make you laugh or make you cringe a bit but in a good way.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Overall, aside from a very small and rare technical issue, Not For Broadcast is a solid and entertaining game that provides a good challenge and is able to make a good point about the current state of the political world.
If you have a console or a bloody good PC to run it, definitely get this off the digital store and give it a go, it's so worth the money.

Now as for my plans for this year, just a heads-up that there's a good chance I may not get around to them as frequently as I would like to as I still got my other shit on Letterboxd and Serializd to worry about and I'm already planning on cuttin' the amount I put out on the former site since I'm still a little burnt out from the last two years.
That being said, there are a couple games I wanna get around to and I do have an event month planned for later on so here's to hoping I get those done on time while trying not to overdo it.

Until next time, thank you for taking the time to check out this installment of GAME MODE: ON.

If you liked what you've read here and want to see more, you can go ahead and follow me whenever you want.

And also, don't forget to check out my Letterboxd page for new film reviews every week and keep an eye out for my Top 10 Best & Worst of 2023 lists soon enough.






AFTER-NOTE: Just to be certain, we do apologize for the fruity language. Hopefully we've managed to get it bleeped out in time. If not.... someone's going to be in trouble.

Not for Broadcast is a bit of a mixed bag.

On one hand, this game is an impressive experiment on bringing the old FMV games like Night Trap and Double Switch to the modern age, and does so surprisingly well. It is fun to play, and melds it's themes and story to the gameplay in a commendable way.
On the other hand, everything surrounding the gameplay is of very variable quality. The writing and acting of the FMV evokes the feeling of a hobbyist theater troop, and a novice director who couldn't decide what kind of play he wanted to make. There are visual novel type segments between the broadcasts that - while being relatively well written on their own - are at complete odds with the tone of the broadcasts, creating a bit of a jarring experience on the whole, and thus end up detracting from the experience.

This game does not know whether it wants to be an absurd comedy musical, a political satire, or a serious cerebral piece of art about censorship and government control. It tries to be all three at once and as such fails at exceeding at any of them. The comedy often tries too hard, the political commentary is quite confused and shallow, and the serious moments are impossible to take seriously due to the absurd tone the broadcasts take most of the time. This game really needed to pick a lane and stick with it, because it could not successfully meld it's themes with it's sense of humor. Disco Elysium this is not.

The game is however wrapped in the package of consistently fun and interesting gameplay and surprisingly many choices, and despite my complaints I enjoyed my time on the whole. I may still return to see what other paths the story could've taken with different choices.

If this game's direction could've stayed consistent, I would give it a glowing recommendation. Now instead my recommendation is a tepid one.

I had some expectations going into this game but I was still surprised by just how well put together everything was. It's unique and fun! The mechanics work, though sometimes I felt like they got a little in the way - they served more as distractions than actual gameplay. The Thing You Come Here For absolutely rules though. The broadcasts are consistently entertaining, propped up by some very solid acting. If you have any interest in playing this game, give it a shot - there's really nothing else like it.

It is a good idea from the narrative point of view, but the gamification of real jobs is very hard to nail down in a way that fits the storytelling, or is fun and/or engaging  (papers please may be the only successful example I can think of). Even with a large degree of poetic license and suspension of disbelief, what you do here is essentially a sequence of quick time events (where you just have to press a specific button at the right time), which can be fun in some sequences (in action games for example), but when it's all you do for 8h, it's hard to keep me engaged.

The story brings some fascinating topics in how mainstream media is able to shape the way news are presented while also maintaining "impartiality", however the comedy is so slapstick, that I felt it was a little too much, and took me away from some of the more interesting topics that it was trying to convey.

Probably one of the strangest games I've ever played and maybe one of the best FMV games. Not For Broadcasts dark off the wall humour, unique mechanics, hectic vision mixing gameplay and an engaging story provides hours of entertainment due to it's multiple endings, Pythonesque comedy and interesting story progression.

It's problems arise though when it tries to handle it's bewildering political elements and extreme tonal shifts. The games story and writing goes from surreal hilarity ( the news being interrupted by gimp escapes, killer toys causing a COVID style lockdown, and ads about enlarged prostates) to dark and bleak poignancy (nuclear war, character deaths, "team approved" euthanasia centres and also censorship on both sides) which makes the game often feel directionless and all over the place. It's not incoherent but it is a bit overstuffed and can certainly be too intense for some.

All of the directions the game goes in though come with their own additions and the actors do a fantastic job throughout with stellar performance and crazy musical numbers. All of this adds up to one of the most unique and thought provoking experiences I've played in a while. Been playing it since early access. It's fun, addicting and weird as Hell.

Imagine your life as a TV news editor/censor in dystopian England. Now imagine that world with the same humor as Monty Python. The game is actually full of gameplay and it's not just some weird interactivity so it can be excused as a game. Without mastering the controls and gameplay loop you won't get very far at all. You sit at a desk with six monitors in front of you and it's your job to either censor the rebels or the government. Your choices will determine who lives and dies and affect your own personal life.

You start with basic controls and the game doesn't get too crazy at first. There are four monitors that can be switched between numbers 1-4 and there are green, orange, and red LEDs under each one. The next monitor is the live camera and the last monitor is the delayed broadcast that the people see. You can adjust the volume for each of these broadcasts. On your far left are the power and switches for each board you control. These are only used at the start of each chapter to turn everything on or during certain sequences to mess up your broadcast. On the far right is usually nothing outside of an occasional thing and underneath the desk are video tapes you must load during commercial breaks. It's important to play some and not others which affects your pay and ranking. Advance is the government tapes and Disrupt are the rebels. It's important to play the Advance tape during the second break to get max points.

Your main job will be flicking between cameras when the green LEDs light up. Certain shows will only have one fixed camera and you can't stay on that camera for more than ten seconds or the audience will get bored. You can flick to an orange camera for a few seconds to mix things up, but flick to a red camera, and your ratings drop. Things get tricky later on when people go off script and there are multiple people talking. You also have to watch your censor meter. When people cuss you have to press space during the red segments or your ratings drop fast. Later on, you can censor the Disrupt pro-talk with blue waves or censor Advance pro-government talk with orange waves. The last meter you need to watch is your broadcast signal. This can be adjusted with the mouse wheel once it starts going out of sync. Later on, you can tune in to a Disrupt broadcast for an anti-government playthrough by following the orange waves instead of the white ones.

While that's the basic gameplay there are some other things added later like audience reactions and during songs you can flick the cameras to the beat of the song for a rating boost (which is really hard and doesn't ever seem on the beat). You really need to focus and watch those LED colors as they're the main thing you will watch. Sometimes you can be pro-government or anti-government by keeping the camera on certain subjects or even loading tapes from Disrupt in certain chapters. It's up to you to censor the people's voices or play along.

The game is constantly engaging and you never get bored. This gameplay loop sounds fun, but it wouldn't matter if the content you're watching is boring. Thankfully, it's utterly brilliant. The humor is very much along the lines of Monty Python. One broadcast segment has you editing a sports match of people tossing an invisible ball into a trash can. It's hilarious. Another scene has a reporter, Patrick Banon, not realize he's live on the air spewing anti-government remarks, his camera woman steps in for him, but Megan Wolfe (the female news anchor and one of the main characters) calls her Patrick Banon to cover everything up. She is now Patrick Banon throughout the rest of the game like no one would know. But it's all played off like it's half-serious. The writing is just perfect and I couldn't stop playing the game to see more of the humor rather than find out if Advance would get overthrown or not.

There are many mockeries of real-life people and events. There's a COVID-19 pandemic segment in which killer dolls are breaking out of a facility and everyone has to stay in lockdown. There are celebrity mockeries of Chef Gordan Ramsey, Ariana Grande, Donald Trump, and some that could be a swath of other politicians or celebrities. There are so many characters, skits, and segments, even the commercials are hilarious and you can easily miss them if you don't turn the volume up on the delayed broadcast. Of course, there are elements that are thrown in like killer dolls attacking the studio and you need to click on them before they shut things off, a heatwave that causes equipment to shut down, as well as flickering cameras, and controls that lock up. You will be very entertained during the 9-10 hours it takes to get through one playthrough.

There's also a second part of the storytelling that I can't tell if it's done on purpose or not. You play through a total of seven years as a broadcast editor, but the in-between segments are text-based and shown over what looks like low-budget asset flip-style graphics that you would see on a rip-off Steam game. It's a stark contrast from the excellent writing and acting, but I think it's done this way on purpose. You do make a few choices in these segments that affect how your family perceives you. Responding to your daughter or wife a certain way. Your success in being pro-government gives you more money and gives you an easier life which reflects in these segments. I never got attached to myself, Alex, or my family as it just felt like interludes.

With that said, Not for Broadcast is an insanely well-written FMV game with a fun gameplay loop that is easy to learn, but tough to master if you want good ratings. I love the branching paths and the replay value is very high as there are entire skits that you won't see based on your choices. Every actor is great and especially the character Jeremy Donaldson. He's a fantastic character and is wonderful to see on screen. I love how you can rewatch the segments and mute each camera to hear what went on in the background while another shot was being broadcasted. Members arguing in the studio in the background is always fun to see. I just wish the checkpoints were closer together. This really hurts the game a bit as some chapters are up to an hour long and you must rewatch for up to 20 minutes to get back to where you failed. I also wanted to jump in at any checkpoint to replay a segment to see the alternative footage, but due to the choices needed in previous chapters, you have to replay the game again each time. For what it's worth, this is one of the best indie games to come out in recent years and revolutionizes the FMV-style game.

If Brian from Family Guy could make a video game, this is what he'd make.

The acting, presentation and concept for a game like this is kinda interesting, and that's the only thing that saves this from a half a star. The plot (a left wing not UK government wins after the first not Thacher administration but turns out to be ebil gommunism) is executed so fucking poorly that it's fucking insulting. Even from an alt-history standpoint, this comes off less charitable than those weird 90's polish games with robot feminazis.

There's no actual allegory of real world left movements, or mimicking actual examples that could have applied to this game. it's been about a year since I played the game, and I started off this review going bit by bit on how the real life examples of each faction wouldn't act like the way they do in game, but after awhile I was just breaking down each turn of the script and saying "this is fucking stupid". This is a game where the ebil gommunism goberment is literally 1984 and would preemptively nuke major population centers because of their imperial ambitions and harsh sanctions from other countries, just like all the times that happened in real life. The plucky resistance group just organically forms due to frustrations with such evils as "land reform" and "they don't let fake Newscorp continue along shitting up the airwaves".

Their idea of a far left government's final public plans are implementing UBI and "free education". They nationalized major industries (which, by the way, look for the words "capital flight" anywhere in this stupid script, you won't find it despite it being a very real consequence of nationalization because this game was written by inbred Brits) but they let the education sector still be ran for profit. I can't add anything onto that, that's fucking stupid and if you think that's a genuine assessment of the left outside of assuming mild social democracy would lead to IRL Paper's Please, you should be put under conservatorship.

I didn't mention much about the characters, or personal drama of the game, and that's because I don't care, they fucking suck. I want to punch Alan James in the teeth every time he comes on screen. Jeremy and Megan's performances are a highlight of the game, because much like every existing UK news broadcaster, listening to them for an extended period of time curdles the food in my stomach. So much of the game is filled with these little character interactions between the cast, and while it's a respite from the trainwreck that's the main plot, static would start playing in my head whenever they're blurt out the sub Harvester-tier dialogue.

I hope notGames lost their shirt on this production. It's not the worst FMV game I've played, but it's the most British one. Sink that goddamn island into the sea, nothing good ever came of it.

An interesting concept but nothing about the mechanics, characters, segments, or narrative fits together in any kind of sensible cohesive way. Though it is often entertaining until the last few broadcasts long overstayed their welcome while doing nothing new mechanically or when it's adding odd elements of pointless family expenses, drama, or tragedy.

An FMV game that has you taking over the vision mixing, censoring, ad picking, headline lean, and other tasks at a news station just as a new political party has been elected. Your choices on what to air at certain times, choices made in text segments between broadcast days, and which and if you follow certain orders or suggestions while doing your job can see the story take different paths or characters actions and fates change over a span of around 10 years.

The actual mechanics end up keeping things evolving over time tend to be dull, often poorly explained to begin with, and trying to get a particular result can lead to confusing moments. Both poor and nonsensical as any kind of political commentary which hurts text story and choice moments drama, tone is all over, segments can overstay their welcome but each broadcast day does have a checkpoint after each ad break. Often entertaining and funny when not focused on the main plot (unless you aren't entertained by a particular segment and find yourself needing to do dull tasks for 10-15 minutes before it ends unless you fail out of it or worse miss something for the narrative you wanted to do then have to go through the whole thing again) but then, due to the style of the game, you will be punished for paying too much attention to the actors and may need to see things you missed after the gameplay segments where you can review the footage that was broadcast, play the ad videos without listening into studio talk or orders, or view the moments that weren't completely available to you. When you preform actions for narrative purposes, sometimes it hurts your broadcast and possibly your score for the segment, but letting the more obvious things happen like playing certain ads or allowing the broadcast to be disrupted don't damage your score or really cause you any problems with getting fired or arrested. I wasn't sure why I was gaining or losing score during certain segments but since it only impacts your money that doesn't really seem to matter it never made much of a difference to me if I was getting an A+ or D.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1680375861428752385

Great concept for a game and the gameplay is stellar to match, but it's buggy as all hell, contains some of the least biting satire I've seen in anything ever, and it's often just very much extremely not funny.

One of the weirdest choices is the presence of text adventure sections between the actual gameplay in which you're taken through the life of the protagonist (named after the protagonist in 1984, ughhh) in which the increasing authoritarianism of the new left-wing regime affects his family in more and more explicitly negative ways. It's pretty explicitly libertarian in its specific framing of its "government is evil" mentality, but more importantly, it's just lazy. Narrative equivalent of that January 1984 boomer comic.

The rest of the gameplay is what you came for, and honestly it's great enough that I probably could have made it through the rest of this, had it not kept crashing and making me redo these shitty segments over and over again. I've had to replay the first 5-10 minutes of day 232 like 4 or 5 times now and it is full of some of the least funny and most overlong comedy bits of all time. Starts with a ridiculous number of Onion-reject headlines, I'm talking like 20 different ones all taking at least 30 seconds each, but usually more, followed by a dreadful interview between a bunch of foreign ministers, where the joke is that the vaguely Russian guy keeps saying the words "tiny penis" and the vaguely nordic/icelandic guy is a hippie who is simultaneously too lazy to vote and also in charge of a government so authoritarian that it arrests people for killing bugs since it's bad for animal welfare or some shit.

It sucks that a game with gameplay this good is stuck with this script. All I'm saying is if someone actually funny or with anything worth saying got ahold of it you'd have an incredible all-timer FMV game

In a world that feels to me to be oversaturated with Papers, Please-like political sims, in which the player controls an ordinary person influencing the government through player choices, Not For Broadcast manages to stand out to me, thanks in no small part to its commitment to the world it builds, just a little off-kilter from our own.

It's a flawed game, to be sure. In addition to bugs, some of them game-breaking, it's politics are muddled, which isn't necessarily what you want to hear about a political sim. It tries to commit to neutrality in the name of letting the choice between rival factions truly belong to the player, but ends up emphasizing the bad of these factions so heavily that supporting either in any way makes me feel like a heel. Additionally, the visual novel segments which elaborate on the life of the player character do succeed in their goal of forging a more personal connection between player and story, they are infinitely less fun than the broadcast sequences and often I find myself skimming the text in hopes of getting back to the core game quicker.

Still, I love when stories feel to me like they were made with care, and even with branching paths that reveal new FMV footage in each playthrough, episodes feel connected to one another, rarely contradicting facts set up by earlier episodes. You're granted the voyeuristic pleasure of watching back footage outside of the broadcast room to listen in on behind the scenes conversations you missed while you were running the news, and finding footage I haven't yet seen is as thrilling to me as digging out a chunk of cookie dough in cookie dough ice cream. It's easy to become invested in the characters, as superbly-acted as they are well-written, and that investment is ultimately what makes the story land. And though I see that others don't agree, I find the gameplay of the broadcast sections extremely satisfying.

It's a game that, if you give yourself the chance to care about it, is all at once bizarre and heart-rending, as genuinely terrifying as it is darkly humorous. And hell if that isn't my kind of game.