Saw Review

The curse of the film/videogame tie-in continues. Seldom do films make good games (let’s not even go into games making good films) but in the case of Saw, its really unfortunate that it falls short. The reason being that the subject matter and style lends itself well to gaming conventions. Getting through traps and puzzles, and facing maniacal foes in order to free yourself from the clutches of a self-righteous, resourceful serial killer. Let’s face it, it’s not quite the daunting task of making “The Shawshank Redemption” game. Yet Zombie Studios failed to do what Rocksteady did with “Arkham Asylum” which is milk the creative license for all its worth.

The game takes place sometime after the first movie and starts with your character, Detective Tapp, waking up in an insane asylum, healed from his gunshot wound (courtesy of our good friend Jigsaw). He is told that his survival depends on “playing a little game” which basically means running around avoiding traps and freeing people that don’t seem to like you very much. You’re also told that a key has been surgically placed inside your body and a bunch of psychos need it to free themselves so expect to be assaulted by people swinging bats, pipes and all sorts of DIY weapons.

Despite the 3rd person view, your character walks as one would expect in an FPS, mainly he strafes left and right. This is bothersome at first but it quickly becomes a non-issue once you experience Saw’s combat system. Holding down L2 puts you in combat mode and you strike with either the square or X buttons. I cannot begin to describe how devoid of fun the combat system is but the words clunky and awful spring to mind. The camera seizes to function and, despite the range of weapons you find lying around the asylum, the combat is never satisfying. Thankfully though, combat is not the game’s main focus. That would be making it through Jigsaw’s various puzzles. For the first few chapters of the game, you’ll be introduced to a range of mini-games and puzzles and though some are better than others – the fact that there is so many is interesting in itself. Sadly however, the variety will not last and by the time you get halfway through the game the puzzles will get repetitive, tedious and sometimes down-right frustrating. Then there is the task of uncovering Jigsaw’s clues to obtain combination codes and find where keys are hidden. Solving these riddles is so effortless you’ll often not even realize there was a need to solve anything. Finally, you’ll also need to often avoid traps. Some traps, such as the shotgun-triggered door traps, are so easy to avoid you can almost do so with the television turned off. The tripwires however are another thing altogether. Given the game’s dark appearance and your range of semi-functional light-sources, how one is expected to spot these tripwire traps is beyond me. I often found myself wandering through corridors when all of a sudden the game shifts to a cutscene of my character’s head being blown-off followed by a screen informing me of my demise (accompanied by some maniacal canned laughter that can only be described as utterly annoying). It seems a cheap way of insisting that the game is a worthy entrant into the survival-horror elite, where in actuality nothing could be further from the truth.

In the spirit of the films, the game has a really dark mood and is quite heavy in violence and gore. Set in a dimly lit (and sometimes pitch black) asylum with blood on the walls and infested with television sets that serve as Jigsaw’s communication point. The game doesn’t really get the mood wrong, but in light of “Dead Space” and “BioShock”, there is not much to see here. Furthermore all the areas look so alike you’ll think you’re going circles. There are some nice touches, for example if your character steps on shattered glass, he will temporarily leave a trace of bloody footsteps. The problem is these touches are few and far in-between and since alot of the design choices are inherited from the film, the game’s visual redeeming qualities are not enough to save it. The sound design is equally basic but also benefits from the film’s material such as having Tobin Bell reprise his Jigsaw voice work. All in all, in the tradition of videogame/film tie-ins, not much work has been put into making this game really stand out.

It is hard to recommend this game to anyone that isn’t a fan of the film series. You can’t help but feel that it could have been enjoyable but ends up being borderline playable. If you like the Saw films then give this game a try but if you’re looking for a compelling survival horror experience then move along because this is not the game for you. Saw requires you to endure a high dosage of mediocrity and may, ultimately, be Jigsaw’s most testing torture device yet.