Saw: The Videogame

The player's alter ego is detective Tapp from the original Saw movie. After losing his partner to Jigsaw, Tapp became completely obsessed with the killer. His life has gone down the drain and his obsession has dragged others down with him. Jigsaw decides to give the good detective a chance to redeem himself, and imprisons him in an old asylum. Tapp must face his past sins and atone for them, if he wants to avoid being another on of Jigsaw's victims.

Saw: The Videogame begins with proper dramatic flair. Tapp finds his head fitted with a reverse bear trap that threatens to tear his jaw permanently open. A few twiddles of the analogue stick and taps of a button later our hero is free, but wait, his troubles aren't over! The door is locked, and the key has been tossed into a nearby toilet with a selection of used syringes. But hey, just guide your hand to the right spot, and problem solved.

The very first traps reveal the game's main failing. The puzzles are boring, far too easy, and don't have nearly enough variation. Instead of challenging puzzles, they feel like annoying delays. As the story progressed I also became convinced Jigsaw has to be an electrical engineer or a plumber, because pipes and fuseboxes seem to feature in every other trap. The further I played, the more frustrated I got with this annoying repetition.

My other gripe is the game's environment. The design team should have hired an interior designer, because practically every room is filled with the same identical tables, beds and cupboards. Has any asylum ever had decor this uniform? Instead of a decaying hospital I felt like I was wandering through some endless succession of rooms and corridors filled with the same generic flotsam.

I didn't have the asylum completely to myself of course, because Jigsaw has locked up a whole bunch of other people. Each has been convinced that Tapp is the cause of their predicament, and the key to escape is hidden inside him. This creates a handy supply of enemies who are truly a terror to fight. Not because combat is all that brutal and disturbing - just because it's done so disturbingly badly. Our hero responds to the controls with a second's delay, and this makes even simple fights feel almost impossible. In what world should an ex-cop brandishing a baseball bat have genuine trouble beating the snot out of an unarmed junkie? Weapons do significant amounts of damage when they connect, so even a few hits will drop an enemy. There's also no shortage of weaponry, so Tapp will practically never have to fight unarmed. All in all, the fights feel as pointless and unexciting as the puzzles do.

Praise isn't forthcoming for the game's graphics either, because they just aren't all that. Characters look as if they were designed ten years ago and their animation is wooden and stilted. Voice acting is in a class of it's own, because with the sole exception of Jigsaw, the characters run through their lines with amazingly anemic delivery. Only the soundscapes stand out in a positive way, with occasional creaks and cries from the darkness and other noises creating the only real illusion of a spooky old hospital you'll find in the game. Even so, there's just no atmosphere worth mentioning.

Saw: The Videogame is a game hopelessly out of date. Uninspired level design coupled with simplistic puzzles and clumsy fights make it so painful to play that I can't recommend it even to the most die-hard fans of the films.