Developer: Roll7
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Rrp: £9.99 (Steam) £9.99 (Gog.com) and £9.99 (Humblebundle)
Released: 14th May 2015
Available on: Steam, Gog.com and Humblebundle
Played Using: An Xbox 360, Control Pad
Welcome to Bunnylords Fun Club. We’re an exclusive club for like minded people who want to help Bunnylord become the Prime Minster, by any means necessary, which generally means we kill a lot of people. Don’t worry they’re all bad people, promise.
Not a Hero is a 2D side-scrolling Shoot em’ Up. I’d actually describe this game as a twitch reaction game too although that definition is quite loose. One thing I can definitely say is that this was not a game for me, I like a challenge but this… this was beyond frustrating for me. To the point that I did something I’ve never done before when reviewing a game. I stopped playing for a few days and played something else to calm me down. As I said, that’s never happened before as I like to stick to one game and not dilute the experience with other games.
When you start the game you only have one character to use, an all rounder named Steve but as your approval rating increases more characters will become unlocked each with their own skills and flaws. ‘What’s this about an approval rating?’ You may say. Well, the approval rating increases with each completed level and doing with doing the optional challenges.
Each level is filled with enemies, as is to be expected and enemies can and will hide behind cover especially if you start shooting at them, which is advisable because they have no qualms about trying to shoot you. Due to this cover mechanic the game has element of timing and planning in when to pop out of cover. Do it too early and you get to shot, too late and your target will duck away before you get the chance to fire back.
Tapping [A] to slides your character into cover, holding [A] causes them to slide for longer, the slide can also allow you to knock over most enemies which will knock them out for a very short time and allow for a quick execution move.
Sometimes when you kill an enemy a powerup appears, collecting this will change what your shots will do until you either run out or reload.
There are special weapons you can collect like grenades, mines and turrets. These are used by pressing [Y].
Collecting items and generally interacting with the environment is done by standing over the object you wish to interact with and waiting for a moment.
Perhaps its just me but I found the controls to be strangely inconsistant, my character would slide when they weren’t meant to or not reload when they were told to. When they worked it was fine but a fair few of my deaths and failures were due to this strangeness in the controls.
Bunnylords briefings and debriefings seem to have some element of random generation to them. As if, certain keywords were selected at random from a pool of words. I did one mission where I had a challenge of collecting all the cheese, when I replayed it the cheese was now creatures and when I tried again the creatures changed to crates. Quite an odd but fun thing to include.
Personally I hate this game, it makes me so angry very quickly. Honestly it felt like a chore going through the levels even when I didn’t try and do the challenges. Get this game only if you have a high tolerance for annoyance and repetition.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Super Meatboy
Hotline Miami
Duck Game
