And THIS happy little fellow is "The Gouger"...

The Charge:

One Saw that is overdue for sharpening.

Opening Statement:

The films all pretty much start the same way.  A person who has been taking their life for granted wakes up, their bodies usually wired into some sort of hell-born death machine.  There’s a maniac out there who wonders if these people even deserve the breath they draw without a single moment of joy.  And if they want to keep drawing breath, they’ll have to prove it to him.  This is the very core of the Saw franchise, a series of low-budget horror films that took the genre by the throat in 2004 and have produced a steady supply of screams for 5 years straight.  After bringing in more than a half a billion dollars worldwide, the grisly series has finally scored itself a videogame adaptation.  But does this Saw cut deep, or will gamers find themselves wondering if this is one of Jigsaw’s cruel tests?

Facts of the Case:

Gamers step into the shoes of Detective David Tapp, the closest thing the first film had to a protagonist (sadly lacking in Danny Glover this time out) as he wakes to find himself caught still in the voyeuristic Jigsaw’s malevolent lesson plan.  The object of the game is simple, do what it takes to stay alive and try to survive a madman’s machiavellian scheme.

The Evidence:

Taking place between the first two entries in the ever increasing ‘Saw’ series, the game adaptation is at times a trippy experience that feels more akin to an evil take on Professor Layton, or perhaps a less psychosexual version of the critical darling Indigo Prophecy than it does with its own film legacy, so those of us who are expecting an even gorier Condemned, turn back now.  I found myself enjoying the puzzle segments of Saw, that is until the first two hours of game time had elapsed and it started recycling its traps to pad out the game’s length.  Too many times did I walk into a room that was either packed full of plastic explosives or rapidly filling with nerve gas.  FAAAARR too many times I found myself rolling my eyes as Tapp reached into a toilet bowl or barrel filled with dirty hypodermic needles and other such assorted nastiness for a key.  It also doesn’t help that the game is an ugly duckling.  A sadly abused ugly duckling with a really bad case of acne.  Yes, the graphics are bad.  No, sorry.  Terrible.  Don’t be foold by creenshots.  In action this game is about as appealing as Bryan Adams’ face.

Cuts like a knife, but it feels so right.

Thankfully, some of the monotony of Saw is broken up by a series of fiendish ‘boss puzzles’ scattered throughout the game that take the form of Jigsaw’s ingenious mechanisms that the films have become synonymous with.  Multi-tiered challenges that force the player to use every skill they’ve picked up in the areas previous (i.e.: lock picking, powering up electronics, Bioshock-like gear hacking) to try and disarm the trap before it claims a life.  Gamers will likely fail purposely a few times just to see the gooey results.  Unfortunately these Zelda-esque moments of brilliance are spread to thin across a game that often feels as if the only reason to play is to listen to Jigsaw’s menacingly dry monologues as he guides you further into his labyrinthine hell.  And that’s approximately when the entire game goes to hell.

Rebuttal Witness:

The combat.  Oh, the combat.  Oh, the gloriously bad, terribly programmed combat.  A little ways into Saw, the game up and decides that to break up the stiff puzzle-solving structure, it will introduce beat ‘em up action into the mix.  The problem here, if I can be metaphorical for a moment, is that while people like peanut butter, and people like fried eggs, most people would have the good sense to not eat the pair together.  The attack controls in Saw are so slow and unresponsive that much of the game becomes a battle with a sense of timing.  Manage to get off one strong attack perfectly and the loony-bin customer who just tried to hack out a key that is supposedly surgically implanted into Tapp’s body goes down for the count.  Misjudge that attack however, even by a split second and prepare to fall flailing and screaming into a multi-second long death loop where it is impossible to react or get off a second attack before ending up at the infuriating game over screen.  It doesn’t help any later in the game when Tapp is fitted with the fearsome shotgun collar from the third film, a shotgun collar that explodes if he gets too close in proximity to any of his attackers for too long a time.  Yes its fun that the makers of Saw saw fit (ouch) to stuff as many hilarious weapons as they could into the game.  But Dead Rising this is not.  Beating a psycho with a mannequin leg isn’t nearly as fun as a zombie, especially not when the game keeps throwing cheap punches at you while you play.

Closing Statement:

Saw is guilty of being a quick movie cash-in, a glorified budget title that offers gamers nothing more than lacklustre presentation (which is at times so poor that I didn’t even want to get into it), shoddy game design, and a shiny recognizable logo on the packaging.  The game’s pace is forcibly slowed to a methodical crawl by the overabundance of recycled traps (seriously, any gamer who doesn’t get frustrated with the rampant use of shotguns rigged over doorways is my new hero).  Horror fans should run screaming away from this title.  Like its eponymous film franchise, Saw gets rustier and duller the longer it trudges on.  It’s scary for all the wrong reasons.

The Verdict:

Everyone be sure to have Mommy, Daddy, or a legal guardian check your candy before you chow down after tonight’s festivities.  Unless your name is Jake Busey.  You probably want to check that stuff yourself Jake.

- J

Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (360 version reviewed)

Developer: Zombie

Publisher: Konami

Release Date: October 6^th, 2009

Rated: M for Mature.