Saw Review [PS3]

24 Nov 2009 at 15:56:49 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (PS3)

I understand, Mr. Jigsaw Killer, that you want to play a game. You've said it about five times already. You really like games, I can tell. The thing is, I really like games too, and I don't want to play yours, because yours is a bit shit.

Saw, relating what happens between the first and second films, starts off well enough. At first, the atmosphere is undeniably creepy – the old, ruined asylum provides a fitting location for your particular breed of sadistic death-traps. The first few traps and rooms are simple enough, but still remarkably tense. Pulling one of the characteristic reverse bear-traps from protagonist Detective Tapp's head is a nice opening moment for anyone who's seen the films, and the simple puzzles in the first few rooms provide a nice way of learning the basic controls.

Then things start going awry. Tapp, no longer looking or sounding like Danny Glover but neatly replaced by Earl Alexander (Left 4 Dead's Louis), controls like a particularly unwieldy tank. Things get worse the instant combat begins, with the tutorial's instructions of grabbing a weapon and fending off an assailant a surefire way to get yourself killed, because weapons are ludicrously slow and being punched interrupts the animation - meaning that forgetting about almost every weapon in the game and simply punching your way to victory will get you through the majority of encounters.

The asylum in the game has been set up specifically to test Tapp who, after the events of the first film, has been captured by Jigsaw as his obsession with catching the killer has ruined both his life and the lives of those around him. In traditional ironic death-trap fashion, for Tapp to escape the asylum with his life intact he's going to have to solve a load of puzzles, most of which revolve around forgiving – or being forgiven by – people who have been affected by his Jigsaw obsession. All of this while, naturally, fending off hordes of people desperate for the key that will save their own lives, which Jigsaw just happened to bury inside Tapp's body.

There are some nice touches, it's true. One or two moments in the game's third chapter are simultaneously touching and chilling, and there's something unnervingly paternal about Jigsaw, portrayed brilliantly in both the game and the movies by Tobin Bell. Jigsaw is the continual link throughout the entire game, constantly teasing Tapp and making him examine his own failings, but seemingly with the best motives. Hints are regular and Jigsaw seems to want Tapp to succeed – which is in-keeping with the films, certainly – but the constant threat of death makes this care nothing short of spooky.

Which is why it's a shame that pretty much everything else is bad enough to ruin the atmosphere. Once you're through the opening segments, you'll start seeing a lot of repetition. Perhaps you'll have to search a room to find a combination to unlock the exit, which is normally a matter of standing in the right place so that little bits of numbers painted on walls and pillars match up. Maybe you need to find a fuse to turn the lights off so that luminous paint depicts a clue. Perhaps you need to rotate pipes to vent poisonous gas out of a room before it kills you.

All of which is fine, really; they're reasonably entertaining puzzles that will keep you occupied and the with the threat of imminent death hanging over your head, there's a level of tension. The problem is that you'll have done all of these by the end of the first two chapters, and then you do them over and over again until the end of the game. There are timing puzzles, there are Layton-esque brain-teasers, there are bits that require a degree of lateral thinking, but they're all repeated over and over again.

The specifics of the puzzles randomise each time you play the game, which is a blessing and a curse. Turning the game off and on again changes the configuration of each puzzle, but there are no safeguards as to when each puzzle will trigger. To save the other victims at the end of each chapter, you normally have to complete a series of regular puzzles within a tight time limit. It's a bit disappointing, then, to do this, and then have the very first puzzle on the next chapter be an exact repeat of the final one from the previous chapter. When you start recognising the puzzle layouts, the atmosphere drains away.

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