There are few things more irritating in life than people that are only too happy to proffer a negative opinion on something without ever having seen/heard/eaten/shagged the thing in question. Like every single time a politician makes a comment about video games.

I am one of those people. Sometimes.

I am basically a lazy bastard. So if I’m reading something, either in print or online, and I find myself liking the article and warming to the theme, then I can usually be relied upon to just sort of slip unannounced into the author’s mind and nick off with his or her opinions, appropriating them for myself and relaying them to whomever will listen.

And so it was with Heavy Rain. The build up to the release seemed to illustrate that there wasn’t a lot of middle ground with it – people were either heralding it as some kind of new dawn for gaming or ripping the absolute shit out of it. And because I am, by nature, a miserable bastard that likes negativity and swearing, I sided with the latter bunch. But that’s pretty fucking meaningless, isn’t it? So I decided to play it.

And it is shit, which just goes to show that I’m a fucking idiot for wasting several hours of my life in a pointless attempt to justify my stolen opinions. I should’ve known. The people I stole those opinions from know their shit. I mean, you wouldn’t nick a Ferrari off Chris Evans only to find out that the oil needed changing and there were crisp packets and Rizlas all over the passenger seat.

If you’ve ever read anything here before, you’ll be aware that I don’t really review games as much as try and write jokes about bumming with a few references to the title. And I won’t be breaking that habit here, but be warned: if you haven’t played it and think you might, then you should be aware that there are spoilers ahead.

But don’t worry, they mostly relate to digitized tits.

Ok, the basics: Heavy Rain is pitched as an interactive movie. You get to play as four different characters, and the decisions you make with each one during the game will affect not only the outcome, but also the actual events leading up to it. And that’s just fucking great, up to a point. And the point is when you realise you have absolutely no interest whatsoever in what happens to any of the characters. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be hoping for a scenario in which they all die, preferably by being encased in concrete and lowered into a storm drain.

There’s a lot of storm drains in this game.

The game uses what the developers probably describe as a revolutionary control system for character interaction. And it is revolutionary in a sense. Because you can’t actually control your character. Well, you can. Sort of. But check this out: there’s no button for run. I’ll write that again in bold type in case you think you’ve lost your mind.

THERE IS NO BUTTON FOR RUN.

Occasionally you do actually get to run. But only when the game says you can.

“Yeah but it’s in keeping with the realistic element of the game, people don’t run everywhere in real life, do they?”

Sod off. It doesn’t add any sense of realism to the game, it just makes the incredibly tedious tasks scattered throughout it even more fucking tedious. Here’s a brief list, off the top of my head, of just some of the gaming delights afforded to you by David ‘I’m like a film director, only moreso’ Cage.

• Make scrambled eggs
• Change a baby’s shitty nappy
• Draw a house
• Do some cleaning
• Push son on swings
• Sit in a chair
• Brush your teeth
• Have a shower
• Have sex

The perverts among you will have probably woken up at the mention of those last two points. Controlling one of the female characters (no, I can’t remember her fucking name), you get to take a shower. Which means that, yes, you get to see her tits. It is the most gratuitous and profoundly unerotic thing I have ever seen in my life, let alone in a game. At least it was, until I got to the sex scene. I sat there genuinely trying to work out the point of it. It wasn’t titillating (although I bet some dirty little bastard has cracked one off to it) and it didn’t add anything to the ‘plot’ because I DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS IN THE FIRST PLACE. And to cap it off, the bloke (Ethan, remembered that) was wearing some kind of bandage that looked disarmingly like a bra, which gave the whole thing the air of a scene from Glen or Glenda.

The ‘action’ scenes fare little better. Basically, they’re a bit like those mercifully brief parts in later Tomb Raider games where you press buttons as prompted on the screen. And occasionally waggle the controller about. That’s it. I played the game through on the normal setting and it was pathetically easy, even for a cack-handed fuckwit like me.

But I suppose my real problem with Heavy Rain is with its pretensions to be somehow elevated from other games by its apparently adult theme and complex plotting. Bullshit. The plot, such as it is, is so hackneyed, predictable and derivative that even an early 80s Michael Winner would have balked at making it into a film. David Cage talked about being influenced by films like Se7en. Believe me, Heavy Rain is to Se7en what Columbo is to, well, Se7en. Although I would genuinely prefer to watch an episode of Columbo than spend another minute on this turd of game.

Most games have fairly shonky plots. But by and large we’re prepared to forgive that, provided the gameplay itself is good. There is no gameplay in Heavy Rain! It’s a con. No gameplay, a wafer thin plot and even thinner characterisation.

I’m starting to feel a bit sick now, so let’s round this off with me taking a few pot-shots at David Cage and the pretentious shite that drops out of his mouth every time he moves his chin.

“I believe that people are not used to thinking when they play simply because no one offered them the chance to think before. People like to think. When I watch a movie the last thing I want is something that doesn’t make me think. I want something that provokes reactions in me. Why would games be any different?”

Well, he’s right in part. People do like to think. I lost count of the times I thought “this game is fucking shit” whilst playing Heavy Rain. And the movie analogy is a terrible one. Let’s take a few recognised classic films: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Chinatown, Blade Runner, etc. I enjoyed them all immensely (still do), but not one of them ‘makes me think’, at least not in the way Cage means. They provoke reactions, sure. But the assumption that a film (and by extension, a game), in order to be any good, has to make you think is complete bollocks.

Some films, however, do make you think. And I’m not against the idea that a game could do the same. But what, exactly, is Heavy Rain meant to ‘make me think’? Do you expect me to watch poorly voiced characters recite a terrible script and then ponder such issues as the baseness of man, the nature of bereavement, the idea that man can ultimately do good by doing bad? OR DO YOU JUST WANT ME TO LOOK AT A PAIR OF DIGITISED TITS?

For fuck’s sake.

“You are in the middle of the story and you can change it.”

BIG FUCKING DEAL.

You know what, Cage? When I first watched Goodfellas, at no time did I think to myself, “wow, that was great. I wish I could watch it again, but a version where Henry decides not to marry that woman out of The Sopranos. It would be so fascinating to see how the story would change.”

Would it fuck.

The only way in which changing the story of Heavy Rain becomes a factor is if you’re prepared to put yourself through it again, and make different choices throughout. I’ve no doubt there are some cretins out there that have done just that, and they should be found and killed.

Christ, I can’t do this any more. Heavy Rain is the most tedious, pretentious, joyless skidmark of a game I’ve ever played. Oh, and one final point. Not only do you not have the option to play as a black character, but every black NPC that I came across was either a thief, a murderer, or both.

Makes you think.

Fuck it.

Is Joe Danger out yet?