Not A Hero

Editor's Notes

Steam PC version reviewed. Only the keyboard controls were used.

Introduction

'Not A Hero' is the evolution of the flash game 'Ur Not A Hero' by Roll7 founder John Ribbins. It borrows elements from several of Ribbins’ other games as well, like 'Hackathor' and 'Jeffrey Archer'.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

In 'Not A Hero', an anthropomorphic rabbit has traveled back through time to save the world (not like 'Donnie Darko', exactly). Bunnyman is an accomplished politician who must be elected as mayor to avert a global calamity. He does this in spectacularly violent fashion, sending armed thugs to wipe out buildings full of other thugs and complete politically corrupt objectives. The Bunnyman himself doesn’t do any shooting, but is not above acting as a getaway driver.

The game is presented in a 2.5D fashion, which is all the rage these days. Bunnyman’s henchman is typically dropped onto the roof of a building, and then rampages through the halls of that building and several nearby ones, jumping haphazardly between balconies and creating bright red pools of pixel blood whenever he encounters an enemy. The game is technically a cover-based shooter, and is a great example of the high difficulty, try-and-die twitch titles popular in the indie scene. It is not unlike 'Hotline Miami', another bloody twitch shooter, although the camera perspective and humor differ.

In true arcade style, the player character can retrieve power-ups from the levels and dispatched enemies. Some of these are wacky gun upgrades with limited ammunition, like laser beams and superball bullets. Others are grenades or molotovs. The action is explosive, fast-paced, and relentless. Enemies ran at me from all sides, hoping to flush me out from cover and whittle down my five measly (but regenerating) health bars. Some were content to stay in cover and take occasional potshots, while others would run right at me, even when I was using the shotgun-wielding thug.

Bookending the very short action levels are odd little cutscenes where Bunnyman compliments the player on their performance and presents a briefing on the next mission. These are sometimes funny and usually surreally confusing. Bunnyman is a strange creature, with dialogue that alternates between decent political satire and bewildering non sequiturs. The game on the whole has a very light, almost playful demeanor.

My chief complaint is with the controls. The mouse goes unused; the character is controlled with the arrow buttons and just a few other preset keys. This can lead to avoidable errors and frustration when things start to become heavy during each level. A mouse option would have been nice, or any kind of remapping feature really. Because each level is so short, I usually didn’t mind dying a lot, as little progress is lost and it’s quite to fun to engage in heated pixel fights.