I just don’t know where to begin with this game. Hektor is an interesting blend of survival horror, but it doesn’t quite live up to the scares as much as it makes you sick. I’m not talking sick from the imagery, but from the way the game bends and waves the entire visual experience. I can equate playing Hektor to being really drunk and stumbling about downtown trying your hardest to not vomit all over the place. Also, the game can be a bit of a bore.
Nothing special in the setting in Hektor as you wake up in some sort of facility with no idea of who your are or what you are doing, with only the vague idea that you were operated on in some way. You won’t be doing any attacking here as your only main items will be a lighter that never runs out of juice, a flashlight that makes the one in Doom 3 look like it had the worlds longest running battery, and some pills that you’ll amass by the dozen. The game is just your exploring this rundown looking asylum, but it isn’t quite as scary or exciting as the game leads on.
The game is broken up into three acts and a prologue, but you won’t see your first “scare” until quite a ways into the experience (or at leeast I didn’t). It can be a startling experience, but the weight of seeing your first scary man is diminished because of how long it takes to happen. There is only so much anxious searching one can do before your brain just adapts to the fear and treats any scary moment into something welcome instead of fear inducing. Not only that, but this pop scares never changes (the same scary man screams at you every time) and lose their impact quickly.
So the game is less horror and more exploration and story development, something of which I am very much in favor of, especially in these generic ARE YOU SCARED YET! style of games. Notes and letters are strewn about the facility that will allow you to piece together some sense of what is going on. At first things will be well over your head, but the parts start to become clear the more you explore. It’s a fantastic system as these bits and pieces are all over the place so there won’t be any long stretches of pure boredom that many of these style games deal with, but you’ll begin to see Hektor as a “find the next note” style affair.
It’s difficult to talk about the story without giving things away, but know that odds are you will figure things out well before the game ends if you are on the ball with certain mainstream shows currently on TV. Like I said, I can’t say much as the story is one of the parts that makes Hecktor and interesting experience. What I can say, and what you probably inferred, is that Hektor revolves around mind control and tampering, so if that is your cup of tea, you’ll like this. The problem I have (and it’s a personal one) is that many of these notes revolve around a young girl that once spent time within the wall you are exploring.
It’s all well and good and you really begin to connect with this mystery person, but almost out of left field she gets turn into nothing more than a trope. You’ll learn that she is being raped and molested regularly and while the game may want you to connect with this as an evil thing (it is), but it just comes off as a little inappropriate because it serves no real purpose to the story other than to illicit a cheap emotion from the player. I know it plays to some Stockholm Syndrome, but it just feels cheap as I already had a connection going and the notes just began to sour me on the experience. Not to mention that her arc is never resolved in any way that I could see. It just ends up being there to give you something to do and keep you on track.
But look, I still really enjoyed Hektor for what it was even with its flaws. The game will make you sick for a number of reasons, but the core of it does something rarely seen. The game utilizes a Jigsaw system with regards to level layout. This system will keep track of the player within the world and makes adjustments on the fly depending on how you are playing. It, along with the dizziness inducing camera, will really make you feel like you are going crazy. If you get lost in the level and begin to succumb to insanity, either by choice or due to that fact that your sanity pills wore off, the layout will change to take you into darker areas and basement like locations. It feels like the PT demo that PS4 owners got at the end of last year, but that one was a linear experience, Hektor has an actual shifting mechanic.
It’s a really cool system and will help guide you through he experience. You will want to be in the light, in the relative safety of the sterile environment, and this keeps the game flowing without telling you where to go next. The changing of the layouts will let you know if you are on the right track. It’s just good game design that rewards the player for being aware and making connections. But getting stuck in a loop of halls can be a maddening experience which I’m sure is intended. This also means that pop scares aren’t scripted into the game, although if you were like me and did all the right things for a long period of time (mostly out of dumb luck) you’ll find it a bit boring and plain.
Hektor does feature more than just the single annoying scary guy that I mentioned earlier. You’ll also have to deal with one monster that will be on the hunt for you the whole game. As you can’t fight, when this guy comes around it’s a guaranteed insta-kill. I tried running when he popped up, but you can’t really do that even though the developers say it’s possible to lose him or hide. I never really got a feel for this monster as he just seemed to be wandering around at random, and while some of the notes hint at what it may be, it’s never really clear even to someone that is playing attention.
What I do know is that those annoying guys that don’t hurt you will lead this monster to you with their screams, so it’s best to avoid them whenever possible. The nice thing is that when you die you will be randomly re-spawned to another location not to far away, but after a few of this death events you’ll lose all fear of the monster and see him as a major annoyance and not a scary threat. By the end of the game all sense of fear and tension were gone.
The music and sound design, like the Jigsaw feature are also pretty swell. All the notes from various people are fully narrated with a solid output from the voice actors. The music will also give you clues to what’s going on around you. The monster theme might slowly breakout if he is close, or the score might change when a screamer is nearby. Audio will change, cut-off, freak out, or voices may permeate from the halls, all of which will make you question your surroundings and if the game is messing with you, or if you are really hearing these things. Playing Hektor late at night can be a nerve-racking experience, especially with the game’s audio.
At the end of the day I did enjoy Hektor, but this game isn’t without some major problems and periods of boredom. The visual style can give you a major migraine and the Unity engine isn’t implemented in the prettiest way (although the setting helps temper this). The limited enemies and threat may downplay the fear elements by the end, but there is something underneath that shines through to me. A weird story and the coll Jigsaw system make Hektor an… Interesting experience. It’s not for everyone, but those looking for something different might like this one, but for $20 you many may look elsewhere for bigger scares at a cheaper price.
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