Hector Episode One is developed by Straandlooper and published by Telltale Games and is the first of three point and click adventure games. It is based on the character Hector: Fat Arse of the Law; an animated character developed by Straandlooper. The game is available on PC, Mac and all Apple touch capable devices. One note about Hector is that it is extremely vulgar and has a wicked sense of humour.
The game opens with a hostage situation; an abandoned building in Clappers Wreake is surrounded by an army of police forces. The forces send out a negotiator who is deftly killed by a bullet to the head. Hector is just been put on duty as the new negotiator only, he has yet to find that out as he isn’t anywhere nearby. The scene changes to a police holding cell which is riddled with filth in every corner with a sleeping Hector lying on the bed smoking. Clicking will wake him up from his drunken coma and then your first task is to leave the room.
The graphic style is animated with slight caricatures and nicely designed backdrops filled with rubbish and general filth. Clappers Wreake really does give off an urban crime-ridden town feel with all sorts of vandalism, dodgy characters loitering around and muck all around the city which manages to keep a quite varied colour palette despite being based in such a grimy place. The animations themselves are a slick, high-quality that is better than most kids’ cartoons.
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There is a pretty easy to use “How To” that you can access at any point for the finer points of controlling the game. The puzzles are pretty simple when you think about them but some are a little off-beat and some are a lot of revolting. Sometimes it will take a while to formulate a solution in your mind; as you will have to think in more disgusting ways at times in order to solve the various puzzles.
The voice acting is very mixed with Hector taking the lead in both the storyline and while the other voices are a little lacklustre with many voices being quite annoying to listen to. The rest of the audio is very good; with the background music being really quite pleasing. All the scrapes, gunshots and other sounds are pretty well done as well.
Story
The story and writing are crude and vulgar throughout; at first it is quite overpowering with it being vulgar for vulgarities sake. Thankfully it soon cools itself off and ends up with just the right mix of cringingly disgusting and beautifully crude without overstepping the boundaries too much.
Presentation
The characters are all well animated and the environments are disgustingly dirty which is exactly what they are meant to look like. The feel for Clappers Wreake as a disgusting crime filled town is pretty well portrayed.
Audio
The voice for Hector and the music and sounds themselves are all pretty high standard but a few of the secondary characters voices are not to the same quality, luckily the rest of the audio makes up for it.
Gameplay
The how to section is easy to understand and the puzzles are pretty well thought out no matter how crude they may be.
Longevity
The game weighs in about 1-3 hours depending on how quick you are with your puzzles and how much of the extra dialogue you sought out.
Overall
Hector is either a game you will love or hate and it’s strictly due to its vulgarity. If you are a depraved individual who finds toilet humour amusing then you’ve made the right choice. Hector is foul mouthed and the situations he gets himself into are disgusting at best but the jokes are there even if the first part of the game hits you with as much shocking material as it possibly can. Unfortunately it doesn’t last as long as most adventure games but is still a delight to play; hopefully longevity will be rectified by the next episode.
Comments:
I was looking forward to Hector when I first got it but the first part took me aback a lot as it was less funny and more as crude as can be. Thankfully that doesn’t last for long as Hector quickly becomes funnier and slightly less crude which I found to be just the right balance. One problem I found was that it really gets you engrossed and then leaves you hanging so quickly. The end came so much sooner than I imagined but now I’m ready to snap up the next episode and hopefully the finale as well. If you have anything that can run this game its worth giving it a go but if you’re not a fan of crude humour then give it a miss.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
