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Hector: Badge of Carnage – Episode 3 Review for PC

Hector: Badge of Carnage – Episode 3 Review for PC

The Gross-Outs End

Hopefully you like halfhearted bathroom humor, because that’s pretty much all the third and final episode of Hector: Badge of Carnage has to offer.

Hector’s first episode was a breath of fresh—well, not-so-fresh—air: a point-and-click game with lots of clever jokes and ridiculous sight gags. Yes, it was juvenile and focused on gross-out comedy, but there was an irreverent spirit about it that made it worthwhile. Unfortunately, the writers burned up most of their good material in a single episode, and the shtick got old quickly. The second episode wasn’t particularly enjoyable, and unfortunately, the same can be said of the series finale. There are some jokes that work, and a few of the puzzles are zany enough to keep you entertained, but all in all, there are better ways to spend a few hours.

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 3 Screenshot

(You can read my reviews of Episode 1 here , and Episode 2 here .)

At the beginning of Episode 3, Hector is in the terrorist’s custody and needs to escape. (Kind of like the beginning of Episode 2, come to think of it.) He and his sidekick, Lambert, wake up in a septic tank (of course). Hector is wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and Lambert is strapped down. The terrorist has rigged the room so that it fills with raw sewage unless Hector runs on a treadmill continuously. Naturally, your first puzzle is figuring out how to escape this room, and your task involves some teamwork with Lambert.

I hope you like feces, because you’ll be dealing with them a lot here. Hector is too fat to fit through the hole he and Lambert open—instead, Lambert opens the tank from above, and Hector rides a wave of sewage to the top. Then, you have to get some kind of transportation back to Clappers Wreake, a feat that requires Lambert to fish for a spark plug up a cow’s rear end. Once you’re back in town, you have to explore a disturbing carnival while searching for clues that could lead to the terrorist, who is executing a plot that could kill everyone in the whole town. If you can bring him to justice, you can bring the Hector series to a merciful end.

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 3 Screenshot

Once you get to the carnival, it’s just a matter of sticking it out through the usual gameplay—find items, look for places to use them, and consult the built-in hint system (which insults you for using it) whenever you hit a dead end. You’ll visit a number of exhibits, some of them entertaining, including a band stage that pokes fun at Guitar Hero. There’s nothing wrong with any of this—it’s what you signed up for in a point-and-click game—but once the novelty of an overweight, foul-mouthed detective wears off, the gameplay starts to feel rote and repetitive. Hector always works best as a vehicle for dour, disgusting humor; it’s never been about the puzzles very much at all.

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 3 Screenshot

To be fair, this time around, most of the puzzles are at least intuitive. I rarely had to consult the hint guide, and there were only a few that I thought were poorly designed to the point of being virtually unsolvable without cheating. However, “intuitive” and “challenging” are two different things, and while Episode 3 is less frustrating than previous entries, it’s a lot easier, too.

The presentation hasn’t changed one bit since the series premiere, which is to be expected in an episodic title. The graphics are wonderfully cartoonish, taking the gritty, bleak world of the hardboiled detective novel and sprucing it up with a lighthearted art style. The voice acting is still up to par, with Hector, Lambert, and the supporting cast delivering lines with expert timing and great vocal inflections.

Hector: Badge of Carnage - Episode 3 Screenshot

The controls here are pretty much what you’ve come to expect: Click an item to have Hector make a comment about it, double click it to have Hector check it out, etc. However, I experienced a rather horrific glitch during my playthrough. Though I set the graphics to full-screen, they left a black bar along the left and right edges. The left bar wasn’t a problem, but whenever I clicked in the right bar by accident—for example, just about every time I wanted Hector to walk to the next screen on the right—it minimized the game. Obviously, this can be fixed with a patch (for all I know, it already has been by the time you’re reading this), but it’s just one more indication that the game isn’t worth your time.

If it’s not obvious, I’m a bit disappointed with the Hector series, and on the whole I wouldn’t recommend it. Its gameplay does nothing to improve the point-and-click genre, and while its potty-mouthed humor is initially appealing, the constant references to smut and bodily fluids wear thin long before the terrorist has been taken care of and Clappers Wreake is at peace. If developer Straandlooper can harness the genius that Hector showed in its first episode and stretch that out over a longer period of time, perhaps their next game can be more successful. Let’s hope that happens, because I can’t stomach many more unfunny bathroom jokes.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.3 Graphics
The same cartoonish look from the first two episodes. 4.1 Control
Point. And click. 3.7 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Everything’s up to snuff. 2.8 Play Value
This is getting really old. 3.0 Overall Rating – Fair
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Hector finds himself on the trail of the hostage-taking psychopath.
  • He’s violent and drunken, and he has a taste for all things criminal, corrupt, or smothered in curry.
  • PC port is a cooperative effort between Straandlooper and Telltale.

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