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Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice
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Graphics & Sound:
Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice brings us back to the crazy town of Clappers Wreake, where they don't seem to have a problem employing the most flawed cop I've seen in a long time, Hector.
Much like the first episode, We Negotiate with Terrorists, Senseless Acts of Justice has an old school point-and-click adventure feel to it. The settings and characters all have a two-dimensional look to them that really stands out. The dark and dirty setting of Clappers Wreake gets explored quite a bit more in this episode, and it turns out we didn't even see a small part of what this grimy town has to offer the first go around. Of course, we will also get the chance to revisit a couple of the previous game's locations, so players who have gone through the previous episode will get a chance to revisit some old haunts, but the new locations scattered around the city really helps to give Clappers Wreake a darker tone.
Senseless Acts of Justice also keeps up the same audio feel of the previous game. The music gives off the appropriate crime-drama feel, while the voice acting, especially for Hector himself, also feels dead on. This time around, Hector's partner, Lambert, is controllable as well, and as a result, he gets quite a bit of dialogue time. This meeker character's voice seems just as on-target as Hector's, and the dialogue between the pair is just all around fun.
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Gameplay:
Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice starts off where the last episode ended. The laptop-controlled sniper rifle that has been posing as a hostage taker has taken a shot at Hector, but since the series would be really short with him getting snuffed right at the beginning of the second game, you can probably guess that Hector is still alive and kicking. Your first order of business is to disarm the rifle before anyone actually gets hurt, but when that plan goes a little awry, you will find yourself switching between Hector and Lambert in order to accomplish the various tasks this new episode poses.
The game is broken up into a few different goals. The first involves not only getting Hector to safely disarm the robotic rifle, but when the building comes tumbling down on top of him, getting Hector out of the building as well. This is where you take control of Lambert since you will have to figure out how to get objects Lambert finds outside of the building to Hector, as well as figure out how to get items in the building out to Lambert.
After those initial puzzles, it's all about tracking down the terrorist given the clues that Hector scrapped together while trapped in the building. The question is, how will a large stain of barbecue sauce, a mostly destroyed hard drive and the broken sniper rifle help you track down the voice on the other side of the laptop? Let's just say that Hector will have to visit a wide variety of locations this time around, including, but not limited to, a combination nail polish and army surplus store, a butcher's shop and a fancy French restaurant. These would be some of those new locations I mentioned earlier that really flesh out Clappers Wreake.
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Difficulty:
Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice had a few issues that left me scratching my head, but more times than not, the problem was that I hadn't realized there was another screen my character could walk to, or I hadn't picked up a necessary inventory item. As for the logic of the puzzles themselves, while they are a bit outlandish, they feel perfectly in-place in the Hector world. This is similar to Sam & Max games where some of the solutions to puzzles are crazy and typically outlandish, but when you consider the general style and feel of the game itself, it's very fitting.
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Game Mechanics:
The first Hector: Badge of Carnage episode, We Negotiate with Terrorists broke away from the standard point-and-click adventure mechanics in a few ways. One that actually held me up a few times involved the need to occasionally repeat the same statement several times in a discussion with an NPC. While most adventure games would either show different, but similar, comments in these cases so you know you should keep going, Hector did not. This caused some stumbling points in the previous game because, having seen that one comment didn't work, I wouldn't re-try the same option. That minor but annoying issue seems to be resolved in Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 2: Senseless Acts of Justice.
The rest of the game feels pretty much like the previous episode. The standard point-and-click interface is used to not only hunt around a room in order to pick up inventory items, but also use them against other items in your list or in the world. Basically, if you've played pretty much any other adventure title, you will be able to take to this game without any issues. That being said, it isn't really recommended that you start here in the middle episode. While it has a couple of minor and different behaviors (see our review linked below) to most games of this genre, it is still fun and pretty necessary before jumping in here.
As the middle part to this three-episode game, Senseless Acts of Justice does a good job of keeping all of the characters, primarily Hector and Lambert, moving and working on the case. Where the fist episode introduced us to not only Hector himself, but also the grimy city of Clappers Wreake, this one gets us deeper into the overall mystery of who was behind the fake-hostage situation and why the voice's demands seemed to lead towards bettering the city.
Like the first game, Senseless Acts of Justice has a ton of adult humor in it, so while I highly recommend this game, it isn't for younger players. |
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-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP/Vista/7, 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent Processor, 3 GB RAM, ATI or Nvidia card w/ 512 MB RAM Video Card, Direct X 9.0c, Audio card required |
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Test System:
Windows 7 Ultimate, Intel i7 X980 3.33GHz, 12 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card, DirectX 9.0c |
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