One of my favourite games of all time is Not For Broadcast. I love the Wikipedia description of this game… "full motion propaganda simulator.” How apt.
Well, first of all, “full motion” means it’s pre-recorded videos that you, as the player, get to control. In this case, since we’re playing as the news editor, you get to edit the news in real-time! Get the “propaganda simulator” part now? Great.
But there was a YouTube comment I noticed, which really caught my interest. It is about the news intros. It might sound weird, but yeah, news gotta have intros, and the news intros change throughout the game.
Now, I do agree with the comment that we’re probably looking way too deep into this. But considering this game has multiple credit themes with deep lyrics that mimic the choices you’ve made to get that ending, I wouldn’t say it’s all that ridiculous. But let’s have some fun anyway.
In the first two “levels,” which is Day 1 and Day 8, we control the news at its best. Good ol’ Jeremy Donaldson on the National Nightly News. Let’s take a look at the intro!
https://youtu.be/XvOi1AH_k10?si=vn0ELK65ZbSQH9gJ
So, what are we focusing on here? Well, it’s specifically the BEEP.
You can definitely here a loud BEEP that plays every second in the intro.
(If you want to remember, note that the globe is also the rightside up.)
To further discuss on why I want to highlight the BEEP, you need to first think of it as a heartbeat monitor. Or in this case, the “heart” of the news. These were the good days, basically, with the news at its best.
“It was the news everyone trusted.” ~ Jennifer Hartley, Day 296.
We also have to note the instruments used for this intro. Trumpet melody, drum percussion in the back, intense strings, and the bass. Pure news music.
If you guys don’t mind spoilers. The first week, the news started discussing about the recently elected party “Advance.” And throughout the first half of the game, they try to set up “public ownership,” which, in translation, is media control. They want to make sure that the public sees them favourably, and given that the National Nightly News is really popular, what a good first place to start.
So, how does the intro sound?
https://youtu.be/kH_lcqcAHXs?si=hn_Tc_4IYyuFPWTN
The music is still intense, but there’s a sort of “brightness” to it. The first intro was pretty simple, and it’s what gave it a lot of impact. You could say it was “concise.”