Goatmoose

Tastes like happy!

So when you hear that Saw was made into a video game, your first thought is probably one of doubt. Movie games have a rep of not being too stellar to begin with, and while Saw has concepts that would make for a good game, it’s easy to wonder whether or not it could execute. Get it? Execute? Clever.

I picked up the game via GameFly. (I know I vowed to stop using GameFly, but there’s nowhere else to rent games these days.) In short, I can say it’s surprisingly good.

It is not based on any particular movie, but takes elements from several of them and applies them to the game. Here’s the basic premise: You’re Detective Tapp, a guy who’s put away a lot of people, had a partner who died, and has done a few shady deals to get things handled. Jigsaw has captured you and everyone you’ve been invovled with and locked everyone in a rigged-up old mental asylum. You’re forced to get through the building alive, saving the people who you’ve crossed and hate you with a passion.

Along the way, there are (of course) plenty of traps and puzzles. You escape the reverse bear claw, you get to wear the shotgun collar, you have to fish for keys in toilets full of syringes, and plenty of other movie troubles come up. There are various lock puzzles you have to get through (like the pipe-matching pipe dial, a simple lock picking, circuit puzzles and more), tons of shotgun-rigged doors that require a quick action response to survive, and tripwires rigged to shotguns all through the place. Not only that, but tons of criminals are roaming about the building and they all want to kill you. Why? Because buried inside your body is the key that will enable any one of them to leave the building. You have to dispatch these people before they do the same to you.

What makes this game work is that there is constant tension. It is super dark, and your only chance of navigating properly is via the use of a lighter, flashlight or camera flash to illuminate your way. You are barefoot, so there is often shattered glass for you to step on. If you aren’t careful, you’ll be walking down a hall and find yourself headless from a shotgun blast tripwire. It forces you to be alert and cautious every second, because you never know what is going to pop out at you.

The majority of the game is spent wearing the shotgun collar. Enemies have these, too. You not only have to survive the enemy attacking you, but kill them fast enough that your shotgun collar doesn’t detonate, as they are triggered by proximity to other collars.

Weapons include a bat, pipe, spike bat, revolver, molotovs, scalpel, scissors, mannequin arm (hello, Dead Rising!), table lamp & table leg, among others. You can also collect various materials and use Jigsaw’s work tables to create special traps, like the gas trap, explosive trap and stun trap. All are helpful in getting through alive.

The controls are often a little blocky and the fighting mechanics sort of suck, but the real coolness in Saw comes from the environment and atmosphere. Puzzles are the name of the game, and survival depends on you figuring them out.

Saw is not perfect, but it’s certainly worth a rent. I’m not sure how much I’d pay to own it since I see little replay value (no online, most achievements will unlock in the first play-through), but it certainly exceeds what most people would expect from the game. If you’re a fan of the movies, survival horror games or creepiness in general, it’s surely worth giving a look.

Thank you, come again.