Thank you Roll7 for sending us this game to review!

A purple masked politician that goes by the Bunny Lord wants to become the mayor of England.  He has less than a month to get enough approval ratings to win the election.    According to the Bunny Lord if he is not elected, the world will “F’ing” end in catastrophe.  It doesn’t take long to notice the strong language used throughout the game.  Even though the subtitles may swap out the U’s with a symbol, the voice actors for the mercenaries on the Bunny Lord’s payroll say the foul words quite clearly.

The first mercenary available for hire is Steven and he’s pretty fast and can fire twelve shots before reloading.  In order to acquire more mercenaries, the Bunny Lord has to increase his approval rating.  The approval ratings go up by completing the levels and optional challenges. The more objectives completed, the more approval points are earned.  In total there are eighty-four levels and the Bunny Lord acquires the titles: Mayor, Priminister, King of Britain, and Global Megalord.  Steam achievements are awarded for each position attained.

The level objectives range from hanging up posters, to rescuing hostages and stopping crime lords.  No matter what the objective is, expect heavy resistance and lots of bloodshed.  Running into a room guns blazing is not a good strategy to use all of the time.  In fact, you’re better off taking cover and giving yourself plenty of time to reload your weapon.  If you trip your enemy first, you can kill them execution style which is a common optional objective in a few of the levels.  Other objectives include completing a level within a certain time limit or collecting all of a certain (usually animal themed) item.

At first leaping across buildings and jumping through and smashing windows is fun, but after a while the levels can get repetitive.  This game is probably best enjoyed in small doses.  If you’re not happy with your performance on a particular level, you can always re-do it.  If you’re curious about the particulars, you can view your stats for each completed level in the stats menu.

The controls are pretty straight forward and I used a gamepad on my political journey.  The D-pad moves the mercenary and the A button lets them slide into enemies (to stun them) and take cover from fire.  The X button shoots and the B button reloads.  The Y button can utilize special weapons like grenades, turrets, and Molotov cocktails.

Graphically, Not a Hero will not blow you away.  Even though the violence is pixelated, it’s still pretty gory.  There is also some sexual imagery in the game’s trailer that shows a character attacking a giant pair of male anatomy.  The game’s dialogue can be pretty raunchy too and there is plenty of potty humor scattered throughout the game.  In other words, please don’t let young children play this game!

The background music is good and each mercenary has their own accent and catch phrases.  Sadly, many of them are inappropriate for children to hear as well.  I highly recommend playing this game wearing headphones if kids are nearby.

Gamers who like 2D shooters may enjoy Not a Hero with its fast paced action and silly humor.  The asking price of $12.99 is reasonable, but if you easily get bored, I’d recommend holding out for a sale if the gritty violence and language don’t bother you.