Not For Broadcast – Review
At the National Nightly News studios, you play the role of Alex, a lowly janitor who, while wandering into the editing room, receives a phone call from Dave informing him that he wants you to take the reins for the night. This is a new and challenging position at a time when a new political party, Advance, has just taken office and is swiftly enacting sweeping changes, including a major transfer of wealth. In order to establish the groundwork for this new vision of the future, the two new prime ministers, one alcoholic bloke and one overly smiling girl, are conducting a press conference. Then Dave says his ferry has arrived and he won’t be back, so you get to take over the work. That’s very much how I got this reviewing job, actually.
It’s obvious that things will get rough once Advance starts executing their new ideas. However, you should start to worry about your job security when you are requested to censor any blue text on the special censor graph, not simply the red text that indicates profanity. If you’re focused on getting the job done, you might not notice that anything written in blue is a criticism of the government or even a mild jab at Advance’s values.
From behind the desk, you may decide which photographs are used in the headlines, which quotes are cut, which angles the cameras are filmed from, and which commercials are shown. Without giving too much away, people will eventually start fighting back against the new administration, and you’ll be in the dreadful situation of having to decide whether to support them by letting their messages through or to play it safe and provide for your family. Furthermore, it’s not as if Advance are portrayed as total evil; they do some good and have some decent ideas, but at what cost? Initially, you’ll only encounter small time skips of a few days at a period, but eventually, you’ll witness massive gaps in history that reveal the far-reaching effects of Advance’s policies.
It’s an interesting look at the everyday effects of the media and at how one individual at a computer may unwittingly shape the opinions of millions. All of the choices you make throughout the game’s 6-8 hour story mode will come back to bite you in a variety of ways, leading up to one of 14 alternative endings. How do you plan to introduce a famous person to the public? Will you be displaying that photo of them, which may cause some consternation? Will you turn off the cameras if things get very dangerous? You make decisions, you have to have faith that things will work out, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. It feels like the decisions you make matter, whatever the result.
The entire story is told through hours of FMV, with an impressive cast that clearly enjoys themselves while acting out the game’s many absurd situations. Not For Broadcast has a serious story at its heart, but it isn’t afraid to explore the absurd, as evidenced by the presence of sentient toys, terribly stupid celebrities, and scientists stuck beneath Dante’s Taint. NotGames do a commendable job of balancing their brand of dark comedy with touching moments and appropriately dramatic scenes. There was a certain portion of the game that shocked me so much that I had to pause it for five minutes before I could continue playing. That’s unusual for a videogame to do.
One difficulty in discussing the merits of Not For Broadcast is that doing so risks giving away key elements of the tale. I really want to share stories of things that moved me deeply, made me laugh, or prompted me to pause and think. Instead, I’ll just remark that the narrative is razor-sharp and makes excellent use of the presence of FMV. On such a tight budget, I seriously doubt NotGames could have animated this game. Paul Baverstock’s role as lead anchor is crucial to the success of this game. Jeremy Donaldson is a man of extreme sarcasm and debate, and he is growing increasingly irritated by the way the news is being manipulated. Megan Wolfe, played by Andrea Valls, is just as interesting to watch as she rises through the ranks at National Nightly News to challenge Jeremy. Specifically, FMV is used to lessen the abrupt transitions between the film’s more serious parts and its more outlandish ones.
There is a lot of legwork involved in running the show, and it all begins with the cameras. The four monitors on the left side of the control desk display the various camera views, while the monitor in the middle displays the active view. The monitor on the far right shows what people at home are viewing in real time, with a delay of only two seconds. The game provides you with some guidelines to help you out: Viewers will get bored if a shot is held for longer than ten seconds, therefore choose the camera that displays the speaker. Instead, cut to a wide shot or a reaction shot and stay there for a full second before cutting back.
Soon enough, new problems occur; interference can disrupt transmission, therefore a little graph must be adjusted such that the green lines stay within the white band and the broadcast continues uninterrupted. The censor button needs to be held down to remove profanity, sound effects need to be chosen for specific segments, commercials need to air at the appropriate times, and so on. Not For Broadcast also commonly includes random events, such as having to zap intelligent toys off the broadcast tower or cooling off hot equipment with a fan. Even in musical numbers, cutting to the rhythm might increase your audience size.
In later levels, things might become quite chaotic. The golden rule of editing to the person speaking can lead to a lot of chopping and changing in scenes with multiple actors. Unfortunately, there are times when the game does a poor job of explaining what went wrong. Sometimes I’d get a high mark for a program, but then look at the details and see that I’d evidently done a terrible job editing it. Despite my best efforts, I just can’t seem to get into the groove of what Not For Broadcast needs from me.
I enjoy how the game’s mechanics keep you so preoccupied that you don’t have time to think about the news or what anyone is saying. If you put all of your attention on your work in the booth for the first hour or so, you can miss all of the warning signs that something is amiss. The broadcast archives are a clever solution to this problem, as they allow viewers to rewatch past broadcasts and hear audio from alternate camera viewpoints that were muted during live broadcasts.
The gameplay, nevertheless, seems to be lacking in my opinion. As I adjusted to switching cameras, suppressing offensive language, managing interference, and introducing commercials, the first few hours were fun. But after a while, the monotony, busywork, and feeling that life is just a series of monotonous minigames starts to get to you. It could be argued, and perhaps should be, that the gameplay is thematically appropriate; just as in real life, doing the same job over and over can become mindless and rote until something big pops up, which in this case are the choices regarding how to portray the new government, guests, and other groups.
However, that’s the way the world actually is, and I don’t play games to escape reality. The gameplay isn’t good enough on its own, so I would have quit within the first three or four hours if the story wasn’t so engaging. Fortunately, the game’s auto-censoring, interference, and viewer loss rates can all be adjusted via menu choices, which is a nice touch.
In the downtime between episodes, the player is faced with decisions that have both immediate and long-term consequences. In the beginning, my partner’s brother showed up at the door and asked to borrow my passport so that he and his family could flee the country before their wealth was confiscated in the interest of the greater good. Should I put my own money towards my daughter’s trip? Do I encourage my son’s growing commitment to Advance? What kind of Hell awaits me if I choose to work again on the weekend instead of spending quality time with my significant other?
The financial situation of the family is one of the most visible ways in which the news influences family life. Making more money by doing a good work (often by editing everything properly and cooperating with Advance) has far-reaching consequences, some of which are tragic. Slipperier still is the attempt to affect the stock market by means of specific advertisements. I find this situation highly compelling, since it forces one to weigh personal convictions against the needs of one’s loved ones.
The gap between your time at work and at home is quite wide, unfortunately. There are many hours of footage from the studio with the anchors and guests talking, allowing us to get to know them better. There’s a link there, whether or not you like those people. However, home life is conveyed through static images and text. Everything is hazy on purpose, it seems. You seldom see your family, and your Partner, Sam, or they/them, may be anyone as you never use their gendered pronouns. I don’t know anything specific about Sam, thus I have no concept of their interests, dislikes, or sense of humour. So it turns out I’m a father of two, but I’d be at a loss to explain our family dynamic. I have no idea how my own home currently seems.
It renders one’s choices meaningless and the outcomes irrelevant. Extremely tense moments would arise, and I wouldn’t give a hoot. The staff at the radio station are all familiar faces, but my own family members remain a mystery to me. They’re the spectres of the digital age.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: gameplay is king. But there are always exceptions to every rule, and Not For Broadcast is one of them. A short perusal of the Steam reviews reveals that many players were more enthusiastic about the experience than I was. The novel concepts and well-written scripts more than made up for the hectic nature of live broadcasting in my opinion. The plot is brilliant, a refreshingly original notion in a field oversaturated with carbon copies; the writing and acting are top-notch; and the way the plot twists and turns before kicking you straight in the nuts is brilliant.
