Review: Not A Hero

British humour is something that’s very hard to get right, and appears very scantily in video games. Roll7, most notably known for their excellent skating series, OlliOlli, have attempted to implement their own brand of British humour into their latest (self described) “2¼D cover-based indie shooter of all-time, ever”, Not A Hero.

The first thing that strikes you about Not A Hero is that it’s a little weird. Most of the characters are caricatures of British culture, and the main character of the game is time-travelling purple rabbit BunnyLord, who has come from the future. It’s your job to help him in his campaign for mayor of London. This can involve burning marijuana farms, turning on billboards to promote BunnyLord’s campaign, and killing people who get in your way. Most of the game consists of the latter, with a swift snappy combat system that is pretty lethal and gory despite the game’s initial looks.

The gameplay isn’t complex, but everything is designed with a purpose. The same button allows you to take cover and do a slide attack, meaning you can quickly incapacitate enemies whilst heading for the next piece of cover. You can only reload your character’s weapon manually, so you have to keep on your toes and be wary of when and where you’re going to shoot. Reloading early while you have equipped special ammunition wastes what of it was remaining. Special weapons are sometimes fire and forget, and sometimes there is a trick to them. Everything in Not A Hero is intentional, and eventually you end up being able to use these mechanics with the same intent with which they were designed. Combined with the the challenges each level has, and the fact that completing these allows you to unlock characters and you have have plenty of replayability for when you’ve mastered what the game has to offer initially.

Review 5 (out of 7): Not A Hero isnt a complex game, its absurd British flavour wont be for everyone, but if you can look past it, there is some very intentional design that makes for a great experience, especially once you get to grips with BunnyLord’s particular brand of justice.