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Review for Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice

Hector: Badge of Carnage 2
Hector: Badge of Carnage 2

A little over a year ago, indie Irish developer Straandlooper launched a new adventure series on the iPhone called Hector: Badge of Carnage. Later ported to PC, the game was fun and well written, if short and incredibly raunchy in subject matter. One of the few downsides of the game was that We Negotiate with Terrorists was only episode one of three, leaving the "fat arse of the law" Detective Inspector Hector in mortal danger as the credits rolled. It’s been a long time to wait to see if the unpleasant but oddly likable Hector is able to escape the death trap we left him in, but fortunately the second episode, Senseless Acts of Justice, has finally arrived. The design and style have changed very little, but that’s a good thing as the first Hector episode was as entertaining as it was crude. Unless your senses are still reeling from the filth of the first game, you’ll find this sequel a worthy continuation. And if you don’t have an iPhone, fear not, as this episode has been released simultaneously on PC, Mac, and iOS platforms.

The second game begins right where the last one left off. Hector is staring death in the face, in the form of a morality terrorist’s sniper rifle. This scenario is used as a tutorial and the humor starts right away, with Hector loudly objecting to what the instructions ask you to put him through. After escaping certain death, Hector is still trapped in a condemned building with only his wits and his hapless partner Lambert to help him find a way out. The first episode of Hector required our hero to satisfy three unusual demands, in no particular order. This episode follows the same “rule of three”, as Hector needs three things to escape the building. Not all of these are to be found inside the building, so Hector is forced to work cooperatively with Lambert in order to find all three ingredients to whip up a batch of explosive freedom. In the process, Hector recovers several clues from the scene and vows to follow these leads right back to the mysterious villain who has forced so many indignities upon him. This entails more than simple legwork, of course, as Hector will have to do everything from bluffing his way into a seedy nightclub’s VIP lounge to arranging a date with a randy gun store clerk in order to find the answers he’s looking for.

The game’s interface on the PC is very simple, likely because it needs to work with the one-button Mac mouse and the touchscreen iOS interface. In short, the left mouse button is all you’ll need. Each screen has a number of hotspots that Hector can interact with or examine. The tutorial says that by holding the left mouse button down and scrolling around the screen, you’ll be able to see hotspots as you pass over them. This is odd advice, as you can scroll around the screen without the button pressed and the hotspots show up just fine. Likely this is how you’d see hotspots in the iPhone and iPad versions (by holding your finger down on the screen) but it seems strange to include such an unnecessary instruction in the PC version. There’s no hotspot finder that some adventure games offer these days, but to its credit Hector doesn’t really need one. There aren’t an excessive number of hotspots and the graphics usually make finding the key hotspots quite easy, at least on the large screen of a PC.

Left-clicking once on any hotspot will prompt Hector to comment on it, often with negative and/or foul verbiage. Double-clicking on it prompts him to manipulate, pick up, or talk to whatever it is you’re clicking on, depending on the context. The only annoyance with this system is that not every hotspot can be interacted with; some can only be examined, but there’s no way to tell except by double-clicking and seeing if Hector will do something or simply repeat whatever observational commentary you’ve likely just listened to. It’s a fairly minor irritation, as dialogue can easily be skipped by clicking the button once more, but it remains a sloppy aspect of the one-button interface. If Hector picks an item up, you can interact with it via the inventory bar at the bottom of the screen. Here double-clicking the object will examine it, while single-clicking will select the object for use. Clicking a hotspot in the environment, or on another inventory item, will cause Hector to attempt to use the object in that way. Try not to make too many mistakes experimenting with combinations though, as Hector has only a handful of stock phrases for incorrect attempts. It gets somewhat old the fifth time he’s called you an idiot in the same tone of voice.

Hector’s visual style evokes memories of older hand-drawn games like The Curse of Monkey Island, only far, far grungier. The cartoonish style perfectly fits the bizarre and over-the-top setting of the series. After all, things like police officers getting their heads blown clean off by a sniper and beauty parlors that double as gun stores simply wouldn’t be funny if they were realistically portrayed. The town Hector protects, Clappers Wreake, is a place so filthy that even the nuns moonlight as pole dancers, and the graphics reflect this by making everything feel like it has an extra coat of grime. Even the posh restaurant you visit feels dirty, displaying revolting hygienic practices that by this point feel completely unsurprising. The overall look is of an inexpensive but well-conceived cartoon, though not one you’d want your kids watching on Saturday mornings.

The only real fly in the unsavory yet strangely enjoyable ointment is that the puzzles simply aren’t very challenging, particularly for an experienced adventurer. With only a couple of exceptions they’re all inventory-based, and as there’s a fairly limited number of locations and items, figuring out what to do is rarely difficult. But even beyond that, there’s a handful of puzzles that are so simple they’re barely worthy of the name. One poor citizen badly wants more blood to sell to the shifty, profiteering bloodmobile, while the butcher’s shop across town has a “drink machine” that dispenses free cow’s blood. Nobody’s going to be scratching their heads over this, and it makes solving them feel less like a testament to your own cleverness and more like busywork. In all fairness, this example is one of the most obvious among a wide array of challenges, some of which are genuinely clever, such as figuring out how to steal keys from your dinner date. But the bloodmobile isn’t the only puzzle with a plain-as-day solution, and as short as these episodes are it does take something away from the experience.

Given how simple most of the puzzles are, it makes the game’s dual-layered hint system seem almost unnecessarily advanced. If you need a quick hint you can talk to Lambert, who will point you in the right direction with blissful ignorance, as his seemingly unhelpful comments contain subtle clues as to where Hector should be directing his attentions. If that isn’t enough for you, clicking an icon at the bottom of the screen activates an extensive hint system that works its way up to providing blatant advice on where to go next, walking you through every step of the puzzle in question (if you ask it to). It does all this in a written format that insults you even as it aids you. The downside is, you have to slog through many lines of text and quite a few insults every time you want a nudge. You may not even be able to use the hint you get because the non-linear nature of the game often means you’ll need to solve something else first. Still, as cumbersome as it can be, it’s very comprehensive, if almost completely redundant in a game this short and simple.

One of the best puzzles takes place in a whorehouse that brazenly makes most of its money through an automated blackmailer that works much like vending machine. The machine functions on vocal commands, but like most systems of this nature it has a terrible time understanding what Hector is commanding it to do. The result is a conversation-based puzzle that’s as hilarious as it is satisfying to solve. This isn’t really a surprise, as the conversations are what make this game great. There’s nothing too complex in the interface, which follows the traditional format of offering a list of responses, many of them entirely optional. But the writers of this series are genuinely funny, even if they do dabble quite a bit in gross humor and have a tendency to go blue. Everything is entertaining, from Lambert cluelessly trying to converse with a bound and gagged man, to Doreen, the gun shop and beauty salon owner, turning everything Hector says into a double entendre, even as he helplessly tries to word his sentences in the most unsuggestive way possible.

The dialogues are further enhanced by the fine work of the game’s voice actors, the cast of which has doubled from the first game. Now there is not just one, but TWO individuals providing the voices for the entire cast of characters this time around. This is actually a very helpful advancement, for as talented as Richard Morss is as the male voice actor, he’s no more convincing doing female voices than was Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. The addition of Miriam Kelly allows this episode to have a much wider variety of female characters to interact with, though they’re as unsanitary and potty-mouthed as the males. The game’s music holds to the same high standards as the voice acting, with a nicely composed score that employs a wide range of instruments. Most of the background themes consist of dark tones but there are chipper exceptions, setting just the right mood for this kind of gritty yet tongue-in-cheek cop thriller.

For the most part, Senseless Acts of Justice is more of the same great material we saw in the first episode. The game is a little bit longer this time around, but only a little, and the simplicity of many puzzles means that seasoned players will likely breeze through the majority of the adventure. It’s worth taking your time to explore the many optional dialogues, however, as the series continues to be as funny as it is dirty and inappropriate. If you’re easily disgusted or offended, look elsewhere for your puzzle fix. For the rest of us, a return to Clappers Wreake is just what the doctor ordered, even if that doctor is almost certainly facing a malpractice suit for sending us into such a germ-ridden locale. Two words of warning though: one, as this is a direct sequel, be sure to play the first episode if you haven’t already; and two, the game ends on yet another cliffhanger. Fortunately, if the projected release date of episode three is true, we won’t have long to wait for the Hector: Badge of Carnage finale. As foul a cop as Hector is, I’d miss the big lug if I had to wait another full year to see him again.

WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice is available at:

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Our Verdict:

Senseless Acts of Justice is just as funny as the first game and well worth a play for those not offended by constant filth, debauchery, and the occasional dirty word or two.

GAME INFO Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice is an adventure game by Straandlooper Animation released in 2011 for iPad, Mac and PC. It has a Comic cartoon style and is played in a Third-Person perspective.

The Good:

  • Attractively grimy cartoon characters and backgrounds
  • Gross but genuinely funny dialogue
  • Diverse range of fun characters
  • Impressively detailed hint system

The Bad:

  • Hint system is totally unnecessary in a game this easy
  • Hector’s stock phrases can get grating
  • Still quite short

The Good:

  • Attractively grimy cartoon characters and backgrounds
  • Gross but genuinely funny dialogue
  • Diverse range of fun characters
  • Impressively detailed hint system

The Bad:

  • Hint system is totally unnecessary in a game this easy
  • Hector’s stock phrases can get grating
  • Still quite short
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