Basingstoke is an action "roguelike" where you are sent to some hellscape that is even worse than the normal British setting this game is based upon.

The game features a great low poly art style and good snippets of wacky Bri'ish humor; however, I found a majority of my experience with this game to be either frustrating or boring, so I'll spend this review going into some of my issues with this game.

Frustrating level design, progression, and save system. The levels in this game are quite long in the way that they are made. However, the level progression feels even worse with all of the time stretching factors present within each level. You typically need to find some key or code for a certain objective that is then randomly placed on some enemy, corpse, or box somewhere on the map. The game makes no indication of where this is, so you are basically expected to go on a random goose chase for something that is necessary to finish the level. Not to mention, you have to do all of this without getting attacked even once, as you die in one shot. This is also paired with a frustrating save system where you are either required to repeat these already long levels from the beginning or use a "one use" savepoint that can easily be save scummed.

"Stealth" and "roguelike" aspects. This is supposedly a "stealth" game, but there is little you can do to be stealthy. There are typically so many enemies that you are bound to be spotted by one lone wanderer and then have your stealth be all for naught as you are now being pursued by a hoard of zombies and monsters. Also, calling this game a "roguelike" because you simply start over the level you failed, and the environment/items are somewhat randomized feels like an extreme stretch of the term. I don't particularly care that much about this point, but I just thought it should be mentioned so those who actually want to play a roguelike aren't misled.

The boring gameplay loop. There are a lot of small things inside this game, but it all just feels like things added to give the illusion of variety and choice. Most items do the same things as other items, and you can go the whole game without crafting a single item. The game is simply uninteresting and boring compared to other games of this variety, as you'll experience a majority of what this game has to offer within around an hour or two, and the rest of your gameplay will just be trying to progress through somewhat different environments with the same gameplay. Not to mention, the horde mode is quite boring, so that is a knock against this game too.

Overall, this game seems charming on the surface with its attractive low poly art and Bri'ish flair; however, actually playing the game allows you to discover how little there is to really do in the game and how frustrating it is to even do those few things. I can see the effort that was put into the game, but I'll have to recommend against this game, as my experience with it was lackluster.

(P.S. The achievements are a bit buggy to unlock, as well as an in-game character unlock that is impossible to obtain without cheating.)