Dirt Behind the Daydream

“If you’re looking for a decent story with minimal interactivity to occupy a wet weekend, one cut with mystery and suspense, Quantic Dream’s latest might be right up your street, but gamers looking for anything else will be left out in the rain.” - The Sixth Axis

Being non-committal is not what reviews and criticism are for (this was a 7/10 review). But I guess they had to get “rain” in there somehow.

“Ultimately, Heavy Rain is an experiment that both succeeded and failed, when it could easily have been a total success if the brains behind it weren’t trying so hard to be smart.” - Destructoid

It succeeded and failed, at the same time. Doc Brown would be excited about that one, I’m sure. This one is especially delectable, because it also drags out everyone’s favorite criticism that is levelled at video games, where game developers “try too hard to be clever.”

“You aren’t playing the game, the game is playing you.” - Teletext

Holy shit that sounds scary. It’s the tagline for a horror film. About video games!

“Gameplay-wise, it’s not as open as it was supposed to be, thanks to the limits imposed by Quantic Dream.” - Meristation

Annnnnnnd there it is. Another appearance of the hideous stepchild of the word “gameplay.”

Speaking of gameplay (and emotional thrill rides):

“Heavy Rain is a revolution in video game storytelling offering an emotional thrill ride. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite hold up on the gameplay end of things.” - Hardcore Gamer Magazine

Doesn’t that just make you want to jab a pencil into your eye instead of playing video games ever again?

Some people have asked how I come up with all this stuff, as if I have some kind of terrible quote vaccuum in my computer. It’s easy: the worst quotes are usually the ones pulled to advertise the review on Metacritic, because it’s usually the writer’s attempt at summarizing their thoughts using every writing cliché imaginable. It’s as if Metacritic want regular humans to laugh at the state of game reviews and criticism! But I can only cry.