‘Beyond Reasonable Doom‘ is the third and final episode of the Hector adventure game series from developer Straandlooper and publisher Telltale Games.
The story picks up right where Episode 2 left off, with Hector and Lambert trapped in a precarious situation. To avoid spoilers I wont say much more than that.
Gameplay mechanics-wise, Episode 3 behaves identically to the first two games in the series and features the same cartoon-quality animation and voice-work you’ve grown accustom to. The writing team has done a brilliant job wrapping up the storyline with all the fantastic British humor, irreverence, outlandish situations, offbeat characters, snappy dialog and callbacks that have become synonymous with a ‘Hector’ title.
However, as far as content goes, this episode felt a bit brief when compared to Episode 2, clocking in at only about 3 hours of gameplay. The puzzles felt a lot more linear and much easier to solve. Never once did I even have the inkling that I needed to visit the in-game walk-through/hint system for guidance (a temptation I had to resist on multiple occasions during Episode 2), let alone talk to Lambert for even the slightest hint. It just seemed like this time around it was a lot more obvious exactly what item(s) you needed to get to solve the predicament you were currently in. It’s unclear if this was because the last Hector game was still so fresh in my mind, or if it was just inherently easier, but I’d probably lean towards the latter. Don’t get me wrong, Hector Episode 3 was still loads of fun to play, the reduction in difficulty was just a little bit of a letdown.
It is no wonder that today Telltale Games announced that the iPad is their fastest growing platform. To date, the company has released 18 episodic games on iOS platforms and plans to release 30 new iOS episodic games before the end of the year! I’m hoping that at least one of these will be the start of yet another new Hector adventure or even something new from the delightfully twisted minds of the folks at Straandlooper. For the partnerships Telltale has developed with talented studios like Straandlooper seems to be serving them quite well.
In Conclusion
The Hector series sparked in me, a renewed interest in the adventure game genre that I enjoyed so much as a child. While Episode 3 represents the end of this Hector trilogy, I certainly hope that this is not the last we see of Hector, Lambert and the crazy town of Clappers Wreake. While not as challenging or lengthy as Episode 2, if you’ve played the first two episodes, Beyond Reasonable Doom offers a satisfying and entertaining conclusion to the trilogy. I definitely recommend picking all the titles in this series.
