This Is Not A Test Review

An interactive comic book of sorts, This Is Not A Test is quite the visual feast as well as offering quite a challenge to those interested in a Choose Your Own Adventure-style experience. It might not always hit the mark, but there's still often that urge to go back to see what can be changed.

As the subtitle "A Post-Apocalyptic Prequel" suggests, This Is Not A Test is a potentially pretty bleak game. The world is coming to an end and it's a matter of keen survival skills and a dash of luck as to who survives such a cataclysmic event. What this means for the player is a series of important decisions frequently arise. There's rarely a pattern to proceedings, capturing the randomness of life quite well. At times, it's wise to communicate with other survivors and aid them, but other times, it's better to go it alone.

Throughout the storytelling This Is Not A Test offers some fantastic artwork. It's typically bleak, of course, but it captures the pulp fiction feel of older comic books well. With plenty of options and choices to be made, This Is Not A Test rarely feels repetitive so there's quite the steady supply of artwork to gaze at.

This Is Not A Test does falter a little bit in terms of offering up some occasionally frustrating dead ends, something that made me wish for a cheat mode enabling me to backtrack. There's also a slightly pointless inventory screen that I rarely found myself needing to consult, given that options are offered automatically, but otherwise This Is Not A Test is a pretty tightly made game. Include a Landscape mode and iPad compatibility, and This Is Not A Test deserves to be quite the hit.