Hector Episode 1: Badge of Carnage: We Negotiate with Terrorists (no comment about the title), is the first true original Point-and-Click adventure game for the iPhone in vein of the LucasArts / Sierra games from the early games of PC gaming (Forget about the terrible 1112 adventure game also originally made for the iPhone). And let me go right out and say it — Hector Episode 1 is great — and there is no other game quite like it on the App store. If you are hardcore adventure gamers like us, you would have played multiple versions of Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky, and Monkey Island Remake on the XBLA, you would own Sam and Max on the PC and Phoenix Wright on the DS… there really isn’t anything on the App store that excites us — not until Hector came along. Hector is a sleazy and overweight detective who is trying to dissolve a hostage situation with a lot of unconventional means of negotiating and crime solving. Right out of the box (speaking figuratively) the game commands the player to exercise his brain in using a used prophylactic as a net to fish out something out of the toilet to pick the lock for opening a cell door. Oops, spoiler warning there, but if you are dumb enough to not be able to get out of the first scene, you deserve to be shot. Notice our choice of word prophylactic, those who played Leisure Suit Larry I in its original form (not the point-and-click VGA version) would remember that word, for if you typed in any other synonymous forms of the word, the game would not recognize it. Hector Episode 1 reminded us fondly of the days we played Leisure Suit Larry, and that is probably the greatest praise we can think of, to convey how good a game it is. But if you don’t get what we are saying, you probably won’t get the most out of this game — it is a lot like playing 3D Dot Game Heroes, you have to have been in on the joke before even booting up the game.
Hector E1 is made specifically for the iPhone, and the control works well enough — sure we wished there was a highlight all item button but really, aren’t we modern gamers spoiled enough with really really easy games? Hector E1 isn’t a breeze for those who don’t want to exercise their brains, but solving the puzzles in there isn’t really rocket science either. The puzzles are well designed — and the use of items follow a logical pattern, as long as you really step into the shoes of Hector, and think along the line of the world the game takes place in. We are fond of the dialogue puzzles the most, for if you are patient enough to try out everything, something will work… that and the script is really well written, and the British humor (the developer — Straandlooper Animations, is Irish if we got our facts straight) and the professionally done voice acting really makes the game shine. There IS actually an in-game hint system smartly integrated into the game’s storyline (if the player bothers to actually locate it), sure it isn’t as helpful as what was in Runaway: A Twist of Fate, but it works well enough without holding the player’s hand the whole 10 yards.
The game IS episodic and it ends with a cliffhanger, not unlike the adventure games TellTale recently did — the length feels perfect though for that 3.99 entry price, we really look forward to Hector’s next entry. We played the game on the iPad and it looks great with the x2 screen option on, not unlike like how we play AGS adventure games on the PC with the x2 resolution. Alright, the game did crash once or twice during combination of certain items, but it’s a small complain really considering how poorly the iPhone manages memory. The game does auto-save your every movement so you wouldn’t lose much progress. We really hope to see more of Hector, and of course more original adventure games on the iPhone/iPad in the future.
How do you get out of cell…. I’m missing two items I think… Can you help???