Game review - Saw

I've never seen any of the Saw movies. I like my horror movies to be of the supernatural kind, not the gore kind, and Saw is way too over the top for me, but a buddy of mine is a big Saw fan. I borrowed this game from him because it looked like it was pretty decent and it was an easy thousand achievement points.

That's pretty much what this game boils down to. It's decent. The combat system has too many flaws for me to say anything better about it. Here's the deal. You play as Detective Tapp, Danny Glover's character from the first movie (apparently this game is set right after that). You're caught in Jigsaw's game and you have to find your way out. Doing so will require you to kill a number of enemies along the way, and there are all kinds of unique weapons you can use to do this. It's actually really cool in theory, especially since most of the achievements have to do with getting kills with different weapons, but the problem is that the combat just isn't that good. It tends to take too long to swing a weapon, and your enemies will be able to hit you before you can land your blow, thus causing you to stagger back and have to start your swing animation all over again. It was often times easier to go barehanded rather than mess with a weapon, unless you were lucky enough to find a gun.

That problem aside, though, the game was pretty fun. You had to solve a number of tricky puzzles, often with a time limit, and usually to avoid a nasty death. Sometimes they got rather frustrating. For instance, the fuse box puzzles were randomized every time you did one. And in a few spots towards the end of the game, you're expected to do a handful of puzzles in a certain time limit in order to get out of a room before it explodes. Very tense stuff.

Tobin Bell, the actor who plays Jigsaw in the movies, adds a lot of authenticity to the game by also voicing the part here. You'll hear a lot from Jigsaw throughout the course of the game as you attempt to save a number of people from traps and get yourself free as well.

By the end of it, I was definitely ready for it to be over. It's heavy and dark, a little bit depressing, but then I suppose that's what fans of the Saw series would be looking for. Even if you're not a fan of the movies, though, you can still enjoy this game for what it is, a decent action game with some tricky puzzles. And of course, easy achievements.