Hector: Badge of Carnage, episode 1 review

Genre: Puzzle/Adventure
Format: Download
Developer: Straandlooper Ltd
Mac Port: Telltale Games
Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.6, 2.3 Ghz Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, 512 MB NVidia or ATI graphics card
Review Computer: iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM
Processor Compatibility: Intel and iOS
Price: $9.99 ($3.99 for iPhone, $6.99 for iPad)
Availability: Out now

If you acquired all your knowledge of England by watching BBC America, you’d assume a.) the English are either very funny people with a wry take on life, or b.) that their towns are full of alcoholic cops solving horrific murders. Hector: Badge of Carnage the new (for Mac and iPad) episodic puzzle game, combines the two of these.

The title character is a drunken slob who consorts with prostitutes and wakes up in a jail cell he uses as a home. He’s also a Detective Inspector for the town of Clappers Wreake, which could politely be called the Bad Part of Hell. When a sniper takes hostages in episode one of the series—We Negotiate With Terrorists—Hector decides the best way to handle the situation is to simply give in to his demands. Thus begins the first episode, as our “hero” wanders around the city, doing the right thing only because a maniac with a gun told him to.

The game uses a simple point and click interface; you talk to various characters, pick up objects, and use or combine them to overcome obstacles. The puzzles require some old school “lateral” (that is, insane) thinking, and virtually nothing you’ll find can be used for its intended purpose. This makes the puzzles fairly challenging, but the character dialogue can help you out—they’ll tell you what you need, but not how to find it. If all else fails, the in-game hint system will give you clues (while berating your intelligence). And if that doesn’t work, there’s an in-game walkthrough that I had to consult a couple of times when the whacked-out logic of the game took a turn for the especially bizarre.

The writing in the game is sharp, funny, and very dark. Giving (fake) drugs to schoolkids is one of the solutions, and getting out of the jail cell where you wake up involves finding an inventive use for a used condom. With one exception, the entire population of Clappers Wreakes are horrible, horrible people who all agree that the only way to improve their town would be to cover it in about two feet of cement and start over. If you love British crime dramas like Wire in the Blood and Cracker (the game’s most obvious inspiration), you’ll enjoy the parody in Hector. But anyone with a twisted sense of humor will get a kick out of DI Hector’s attempts to shut down a porn shop of which he is a frequent customer.

If you’re a fan of puzzle games, Hector is a well-written adventure in the mold of classics like Full Throttle.