Returning again to the seedy Northern English town of Clapper’s Wreake, the game picks up where the last left off – with a gun pointed at Hector’s flabby head. After a brief joke about how he feels like he’s been waiting there for a year, Hector attempts to disarm the automated rifle using only a pizza box, some barbeque sauce, and an irritating tutorial guide.
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| Yes, that’s exactly what you think it is |
From there you get a few hours of adventure gaming fun, about the usual size you’d expect from a Telltale episode. But it’s not the length we’re too worried about, since Telltale are good at pricing their games to match the time you spend in them, it’s the quality.
This is an adventure game from people who have played a lot of quality adventure games and thought they could do one themselves. It’s also an adventure that thinks it’s funny to call out genre staples, like the ridiculously convoluted methods of attaining your goal, to try and disguise the fact that it’s blindly following them. This game makes fun of “adventure game logic” while being one of the worst examples of it I’ve ever seen.
Want some spare change? Steal a charity donation tin from a restaurant. Need something sharp to open a vent? Grab a pair of shoes from a pair of drunk slags rather than ask the guy with a hook for a hand standing right next to it. It’s also got the regular hang-up of being able to pick up items without knowing why and solving puzzles when you don’t know the aim. None of this would matter too much (most adventures do all of this) if Straandlooper didn’t insist on calling attention to them and presenting them in such an unimaginative way. It’s like every scene has “THIS IS AN ADVENTURE GAME” printed on the screen.
These problems extend to the puzzles. Now, I know this is meant to be funny, and I would never suggest that adventure games stop having silly puzzles, but the best adventures make the ridiculous series of events you have to go through to solve a puzzle seem like the most natural thing in the world. If the main character keeps on spouting “why am I doing this” like Duke Nukem holding a turd and every tedious action is some over-the-top puzzle, then the whole thing falls down. Puzzles should be brain-teasers, important goals you have to work out a way to achieve, not exercises in frustration.
So when the puzzles actually start comes along decently in Hector it’s all the more shocking. If the designers don’t straight out tell you the answer or force you to explore all the areas you’ve been in to find a new thing to pick up, then the puzzles are generally good. Like most Telltale adventures there’s only a certain amount of things to see and interact with so generally messing about can get you through a lot of challenges, but there’s still the odd one that’ll stump you for a few seconds. Hopefully not more though, since that’s where we hit the next bad design decision.
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| Hector knows exactly how to chat up the ladies |
I don’t know about you, but when I get stuck in games I feel embarrassed if I have to look up the answer. One thing I will really not appreciate at this point is being called a f***ing moron when I’m just looking for a quick hint. Normally the hints systems in Telltale games are superb, but this is just awful even without the insults. First one insult asking if you’re sure you want hints you complete idiot, then a huge page of text which you can slowly scroll down basically to just get your objective, then you can ask for more hints or the straight answer. And more insults. Later in the game this complicated method is made even more annoying by forcing you back to the police station to ask your co-workers useless questions first.
And you know what’s even more infuriating? The only two times I actually needed the hint system I discovered I was only stuck through sheer bad design. The first was right at the beginning because I had no way to know that you could walk around to the front of the building (what am I, psychic? Give an arrow or something please). The second because I didn’t pick up a lightbulb that looked like part of the scenery in order to set an extremely fat hooker on fire to set off a smoke alarm and drive out a dwarf from his secure voyeur room. Of course...
Funnily enough, and to the credit of the developer, I did actually work out the rest of that puzzle naturally so they’re clearly doing something right. Apart from the ones mentioned above where I couldn’t progress because I’d not noticed things (can we please have a “highlight useable items” button next time Straandlooper?) solving the puzzles did eventually come fairly naturally, no matter how ridiculous they seemed. Even if they do require picking up random objects and waiting for them to do something. It may be a very adventurey-adventure game, but Hector does at least make sense in its own bizarre world.
The writing ranges from annoying to acceptable to occasionally funny, but for the most part any good lines are ruined by the poor comic timing of the two actors playing every role (one man, one woman). They manage to create quite distinct characters and voices so credit’s due there, but their capabilities sadly don’t extend to making them amusing. I often preferred the game without sound, especially as the music’s so unmemorable too.
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| And the prize for the most blasphemous game this year goes to… |
It’s not a terrible game, however I’ve played all of Telltale’s episodes and this simply isn’t up to the same standard. The writing is a collection of poor jokes and insults (mostly towards you) with the occasional funny moment, and the puzzles mostly make sense but are only challenging when bad design gets in the way. Furthermore the game lacks the attention to detail that characterizes the best adventures. Environments lack detail or things to amusingly examine, and you’d think that giving an expensive laptop to the computer-obsessed tech guy would elicit some sort of response, but no.
You certainly might find a few hours of amusement here, and original ludicrous comedic 2D adventures are something I’ll always support, but Straandlooper have a long way to go before they reach LucasArts standard. They’re not even at Leisure Suit Larry yet.
When habitual screw-up Lambert tells Hector that he doesn’t have to worry about improvising a ridiculous escape as he’s got everything they need in the police van… and then the van gets stolen. See, there are funny moments.
HECTOR: BADGE OF CARNAGE EPISODE 2 VERDICT
You certainly might find a few hours of amusement here, and original ludicrous comedic 2D adventures are something I’ll always support, but Straandlooper have a long way to go before they reach LucasArts standard. They’re not even at Leisure Suit Larry yet.
TOP GAME MOMENT
When habitual screw-up Lambert tells Hector that he doesn’t have to worry about improvising a ridiculous escape as he’s got everything they need in the police van… and then the van gets stolen. See, there are funny moments.
