These Pigs May not Fly, but They Fight Crime! Play Hambo 2

Hambo and Bacon are top notch cops looking to stop Pig Capone, the most dangerous pig in Liberty City. In Hambo 2, you follow Hambo in his attempts to capture Pig Capone, climbing through the city’s buildings and skyscrapers. What is great about this game is that, aesthetically, it immediately calls to mind the classic games like Mario and Sonic; already a step in a great direction! You get, instead, a return to the blocky and pixel-driven art direction so prominent in games from the 80’s.

The game itself is pretty simple: send bombs and grenades over to the other side of the screen in order to attack Pig Capone and the various obstacles he constructs around himself. These come in the form of wooden crates, metal bars, and other things of that nature. Unlike games like Raft Wars and Angry Birds, you are actually able to see both yourself and your opponent in the same screen width so you’re always able to aim and see where your ammo is headed. This compensates for the slightly trickier nature of aiming in this game. You have to be quick, or patient, with the shooting mechanism in this game. An arrow will appear that displays the force with which your ammunition will be dispensed from the shooting barrel, and you have to both direct it to an appropriate height that will take into account the arc of the trajectory while also keeping your eye on the arrow itself to determine the length of air time.

The dynamics of the game is fun in that it brings to play a lot of physical properties for the player to attempt to visualize. You are faced with more complicated scenarios than just launching something from left to right; you begin to have to account for things like semi-circular orbits and increasingly more intricate setups to guard Pig Capone. There are more intricate situations as you have to now also take into account your colleague Bacon, who can sometimes find himself in the line of fire if you’re not careful where you’re aiming!

What is perhaps most annoying is the grenades, as there is a 3 second delay between when you launch them at your target and their actual detonation. It’s a little tricky to time at first, and takes some getting used to; though, it is admitted extremely funny to see Pig Capone staring wide-eyed at the grenades flying over his head as he can’t move or make any attempt to defend himself. This situation brings about the other aspect of the game which is bringing simple and innocent fun. For, as much as you’re aiming deadly weapons at someone there is a level of good clean fun to this game. You’re staring at a decreasing energy bar instead of any bloody targets and the ways in which everything just sort of implodes is rather entertaining. The game straddles the line between serious and silly in a really light hearted way. It has all the makings of an intense shooter game; the escalating ammo, the story line, the natural enemies, etc. But at the end of the day its little pigs, in suits and fedoras. The visual direction of the game is dark and full of dense color palettes, but that is always broken up by the intense pinkness of the pigs themselves, immediately lending an air of ease in the ways they clash.

Hambo 2 certainly has more character development in that, throughout Hambo 1, you never really know who you’re fighting or why. The levels end very quickly without any clear indication as to what is necessary in order to finish. In Hambo 2, you are given a clearer target and a more interesting mission.

The game is dynamic, and the overall visual play is really engaging for something so simultaneously simple. This is the kind of game that can keep you entertained for as long or as brief a time as you please, and definitely something you can always keep coming back to.