Saw: review

• Format: 360 (version reviewed), PS3, PC
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Zombie Studios
• Players: 1
• Site: www.konami.com
  

The first film in the series was highly regarded by critics, even though some disagreed with its rather graphic scenes of violence. The sheer volume of grizzly content has earned the series a reputation, with many film critics labelling the genre as “torture porn”. However, as the series continued it never really evolved, throwing the same old tricks at the viewer and simply trying to out-do itself with the levels of violence it can legally project across a cinema screen. Much like the film series, the Saw video game début starts off well but quickly becomes dull and repetitive.

In the game you play the role of Detective Tapp, a man obsessed with exposing Jigsaw. After Tapp suffers from a gunshot wound, Jigsaw has the bullet removed and sews a key into his chest in its place. Tapp then wakes up in an abandoned insane asylum, filled with a number of mentally unhinged individuals, desperate to tear him apart and retrieve the key located behind his ribcage in order to escape.

As well as being able to fight with your fists you will also be able to wield several weapons including pipes, bats, scalpels and table lamps. Many of these items are quite cumbersome and you will likely be irritated by the lack of a targeting system as you frequently deliver painfully slow attacks into thin air. The best weapons available to you are your fists, making the variety of weapons at your disposal slightly redundant. Simply using faster, bare-fisted attacks makes combat considerably easier. Spamming a series of uppercuts aimed at your opponent usually gets the job done with minimal effort, making the combat feel far too easy and unrewarding.

There are some unique enemies that will explode once defeated or others that will cause you to explode if you are too close to them after a certain time limit. Unfortunately, the fact that the combat is so easy gives these unique opponents very little chance to shine.

Puzzle action in the game is slightly more enjoyable than the combat aspect. As you make your way through each level, there are a number of smaller obstacles and hazards that need to be avoided. As you are bare-footed, stepping in broken glass will reduce your health bar. There are also a number of doors that, once opened, require you to press the corresponding on screen button, under risk of suffering a shotgun to the face, which, of course, will result in an instant death. The shotgun/face style trap also comes into play in the form of trip-wires which you will need to disarm, or suffer another instant death. These dangers ensure that you are constantly on your toes, with a further sense of caution added due to the dimly lit environments, requiring you to navigate through the dark with the aid of a camera, lighter or torch.

The other puzzles are usually presented in the form of a mini-game and some of them are genuinely quite clever, making you piece together a series of cogs to make a stationary cog move or look at a room from a certain perspective in order to find a hidden code or message. This aspect of the game really did have a lot of potential and the first run of puzzles is actually quite enjoyable. However, once you’ve searched through a container filled with dangerous objects/substances or repaired a broken circuit board several times over, the game begins to feel a little repetitive. The end of each chapter offers a major puzzle, acting as a sort of “boss” for the level, where you need to save a life. Although these are generally quite enjoyable, a few of these are basically larger scale versions of puzzles that you will have already undertaken several times through the game.

Although this is a very short game, there is quite a lot of backtracking involved. You will usually find yourself confronted with a locked door, sealed with a combination lock and have to run back and forth in order to find the code, which becomes very tedious.

It doesn’t really fit into the survival-horror category either. A survival-horror title usually involves very little resources. In Saw you begin with the best weapon in the game and health isn’t really an issue as you will most likely find more bandages, water bottles and syringes than you can possibly use.

There is some effort to add replay value as the game offers an alternative ending, but with a chapter select system you will most likely only want to replay the very last level in order to view both ending sequences.

Sadly, despite its many flaws Saw is an attractive game. The atmosphere fits well with the series, and as you progress you will see mangled corpses caught in barbed wire and watch people desperately claw at a window, begging for help as a collar around their neck explodes.

If you are being nit-picky you may claim that the amount of deaths you witness are a little excessive, but overall the game offers a very fitting and aesthetically pleasing gaming environment. With the copious amount of blood, guts and senseless violence, the condemned asylum acts as a perfect Saw setting.

Less can be said for the sound in the game. The audiotape instructions delivered by Jigsaw are well done, but beyond this the atmospheric music seems to simply loop every ten seconds and enemies will shout the same threats or orders at you over and over again.

Saw had the potential to be a fantastic survival-horror title but just didn’t live up to expectations. The few impressive puzzle ideas are overused and the game genuinely lacks any real challenge. No amount of fancy graphics can really help a game that’s fundamentally dull. If you are a fanatic follower of the Saw series, itching to get your hands on the latest Jigsaw escapade you may well enjoy this game. Everyone else should expect to be disappointed.