: Immediately after we leave the cell, we get a phone call from Lambert. There’s no subtitles here and it basically just reiterates what the opening cutscene already said. Why Lambert can’t just come and pick up Hector at the police station is a mystery.
: This game is going to start layering on the Britslang pretty quickly, so I might have to explain some of this shit. Honestly, there are ways to make something British without using words no one outside the UK is going to understand. Killing Floor was a great example of using Britslang that was at least mostly comprehensible.
: The first thing we want to do is take some coffee and put it in the whiskey bottle.
: From here, we need to talk to the “street punk”. Badge of Carnage has a LOT of dialog tree puzzles in it, and none of them are crafted particularly well.
: As far as I can tell, it’s mostly that the dialog trees are badly structured. I had to go through three different options before the one we need to use to progress appeared.
: “Hey runt! What are you doing here?”
: “I stole something. You got me, bruv. Charge me so I can clear off.”
: You might ask why the punk would expect to “clear off” after being charged with a crime. The answer is that they’re making fun of a British policy called an ASBO, or Anti-Social Behavioral Order. The idea behind them was that they treated minor crimes as a civil violation rather than a criminal one, and gave the person a fine and what was basically a restraining order instead of prison time. The term “ASBO” was also used to mean “a young delinquent”. Good luck knowing what that is outside of the UK.
: The option we actually want is the third one.
: “We give out ASBOs like complimentary mints around here, mate. You want real respect?”
: “Yeah, bruv? You got something better?”
: Now again, I’m not British, but according to stuff I’ve read about it, the entire ASBO program existed to address stuff like loitering and indecent exposure. Most likely, the punk here would KNOW that… but yeah.
: I get that there’s ways to figure out what to do here: one of the dialog options you can get with the punk is “Police, I need to commandeer your trousers”… but from a logical standpoint it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
: Upon leaving the police station, Hector immediately gets accosted by a couple of prostitutes. See the wrecked police car? That’s how we’re going to leave the station.
: Gotta love the “humor”. This game is no YIIK, but damned if it’s not trying to be. The entire reason for this exchange is to show you that the prostitute is wearing a garter on one leg. One thing this game is REALLY bad about is showing which screens have exits and where those exits are. In this case, we have an exit to the left and to the right. We’ll go to the right first.
: If you’ve watched an LP of Mystery of the Druids, you probably know what’s coming up next.
: “I was sober once, for about three hours. Never again.”
: … or not. I wonder if they were going for that, but Telltale made them stop. The hobo leaves, and we get his bottle of mouthwash.
: Before we leave this screen, there’s another item we can pick up that’s kind of hidden. It’s this crowbar.
: I thought “cherry bakewell” might’ve been slang for something, but as far as I can tell he’s talking about these British cupcake things with cherry jam in them. The joke is that Hector is fat.
: Back at the police station, we can find a use for the mouthwash.
: If we follow the prostitute to the alley, we can grab her garter off the ground. I don’t quite understand how this makes any sense, but whatever. We need the garter.
: Back inside the police station, there’s a key box that has the keys for the car outside, but the box itself is locked.
: We can then use the keys to free the delinquent, which we need to progress in absolutely the dumbest and most nonsensical way possible.
: “I TOLD you, man! I want my ASBO!”
: “Sorry, punk. Loophole in the justice system, I have no option.”
: “What loophole?”
: “The loophole where all our staff have ponced off and I’m not a babysitter. Now beat it!”
: “I ain’t goin’ nowhere until I get charged with something.”
: “Out!”
: “No way, mate. I’m staying until you implicate me in a crime.”
: “Augh… listen, I’ve got nothing for you at the minute, but if I can use you, I’ll let you know.”
: If we go over to the left of the police station, there’s an old lady waiting for the bus.
: Whoa, what are we, Nick Robinson?
: Anyway, we now need to do a puzzle that makes even less sense than the Big Bullshit Puzzle from Gabriel Knight somehow. We have to use the punk on the old lady.
: “Yeah, bruv. Anything with S-E-X in it has gotta be good for my rep. What do I have to do?”
: For the record, CSI Miami ran from 2002 to 2012, and was pretty much in its dying days when this game initially released on iOS. I think the whole one-liner meme thing was pretty much dead by 2009. This reminds me a lot of the gym I go to, where they have TVs that just cycle through long-dead meme images on the walls.
: We now have everything we need to leave the police station, so let’s do that.
: “Let’s see what sort of half-arsed repair job it’ll take to get this rustbox mobile.”
: The garter works as a fanbelt, and I’m not entirely sure how that makes any sense. This isn’t even moon logic anymore, it’s just kind of cartoon bullshit. As for the battery… this is going to make even LESS sense.
: “Except armed robbery, if you’re quick enough.”
: I’m assuming that’s Polish, but I have no idea what it means.
: Here, we get another overly-long dialog puzzle where we have to pick several wrong options. We want to start with the top one, much as the second one is what we all know Hector would actually say.
: “Why don’t you step out where I can see you?”
: “What, like in front of a window?”
: “I was thinking more like out of one.”
: “And I was just beginning to trust you.”
: “My main concern is for the safety of the hostages.”
: “Ha hee ha, is it now? How ludicrously noble.”
: “Let me speak to one of them to make sure they’re okay.”
: “Look here, pustule, you’ve got to talk to somebody.”
: “Why should it be you?”
: “Have you taken a look around? Everyone else has legs shorter than their arms.”
: “I suppose you’re right. And you seem to be the one who wears the trousers around here.”
: I don’t really get why this had to be a dialog puzzle at all. I honestly don’t. I mean, it’s no YIIK in terms of just walls of fucking text, but seriously. This could’ve been solved in like… probably a third of the amount of text they actually used. Finally, we get the option we want.
: “Ah, the first intelligent question you’ve asked all day.”
: “I assure you, it was entirely out of self-interest.”
: “I have a list of demands, of course.”
: “Should I get a pen?”
: “I don’t know anything about clocks.”
: “Hold on, I think I’ve got some in me car.”
: “Pornography is eroding the moral fiber of society. Its omnipresence pervades our televisions, our computers, our mobile phones… we are saturated by it! An example must be made. I want the hub of the Clappers Wreake porn industry shut down.”
: “You don’t mean…”
: “Yes. The Exotico.”
: “You MONSTER! DAMN YOU TO HELL!”
: “Stop, please, you’re embarrassing me.”
: “These are my demands. Come back when you’ve completed them. I have nothing more to say.”
: “Well I’ve got something to say to you, butt pube. Hello? HELLO? Tosser.”
: That’s about as much of this game as I’m willing to put up with for right now. Next time, we’ll go through the game re-creating my first run as best as I can.