Available now on Steam – £7.99

The opening disclaimer of Wanking Simulator insists that, by proceeding beyond that point, you cannot take offence at any of the LGBTQ references included in the game. After all, it states, it’s just a joke.

The problem is, it’s hard to tell what the joke actually is. Or why there’s any need to direct any of the jokes at a minority community in the first place. Like everything from the name of the game to the content included, it seems to have been thrown in for shock value and nothing more. Much of the attempts at humour feel completely misguided; why do certain characters move in a stereotypically camp fashion, for example? Why call the setting ‘Gay Bay’, or the main character ‘Winston Gay’? It’s not funny and it most certainly isn’t clever.

It’s a disappointingly lazy effort, too. For a game trying so hard to be shocking and hilarious, it’s surprisingly chaste and, not unexpectedly, given the general lack of wit on display, desperately, cringingly unfunny.

Though the main character’s rage and chronic masturbation are supposed to be intrinsically linked, there’s not really any need for the latter to be included at all, as it’s there for the supposed (and entirely absent) comedic value, in my opinion; merely to justify the game’s title.

It lacks the courage to go all the way, too, if you pardon the pun; the main character wears underwear, and masturbating just involves him vigorously moving his hand near his groin. For a game that tries to prove its adult humour credentials by putting WANKING in the title, it’s surprising that they don’t even get this part right.

There’s far too many disparate elements and no attempt to make any coherent narrative out of the FPS-style proceedings; it feels as if the designers had a chaotic first person game in development and needed a way to make it stand out in the Steam Store. Beyond the title, there’s an awful lot of swearing, drug references and violence.

It’s all just thrown in there in an attempt to be edgy, but it just comes across as juvenile; though it’s no surprise that a game called Wanking Simulator is hardly a subtle or imaginatively designed experience, it’s depressing that little has been done to make it an enjoyable game with more to sell it than just shock value. It won’t surprise you that I’d advise you to stay well clear of this one.