If you were to draw a Venn diagram with Saw fans on one side and console owners on the other, then the cross-section would represent people who are going to buy Saw: The Video Game, regardless of its quality. It is therefore a testament to Konami’s respect for their consumers that they have bothered putting any effort into this film license at all. That’s not to say it is good; it’s just not dire.
Employing elements from all of the gruesome franchise’s instalments, Saw finds the player controlling Detective Tapp as he awakes in a disused asylum, the latest victim of the Jigsaw Killer’s demented games. What ensues is a largely routine third person survival horror with lots of running around dimly lit corridors, solving puzzles, and bashing up the occasional psychopath. Unfortunately none of the individual elements elevate themselves above the average and the game as a whole never feels more than a pastiche of all the titles it is trying to emulate.
Saw: The Video Game - Detective Tapp vs Jigsaw
Saw's asylum itself is suitably eerie with plenty of locked doors and broken walls to navigate, not to mention Jigsaw’s patented shotgun-and-tripwire booby traps. Disembodied voices float up from other floors and agonised screams echo up and down the halls. As a late night shocker to be played with the curtains drawn and the lights off it has all the right ingredients – it just never manages to deliver any depth. Take the aforementioned booby traps, for instance. So much more could have been made from this concept but as it is the formula never varies too much – spring a trap and hit a random button to stop it going off or spot it in time and reload it for a pursuer. Aside from the enhanced graphics it is all very Spy Vs Spy, which was great for 1984 but things should have moved on in the intervening quarter of a century.
Then there are the puzzles, most of which appear as detached mini games with minimal effort made to integrate them into the story. In fact the vast majority of them, such as moving coloured tubes to fill containers or matching wires to defuse bombs, wouldn’t look too amiss in one of those old 50 games on one cartridge affairs that dodgy software houses used to churn out when money hit the rocks. It is forgivable when this kind of content turns up as the occasional bonus round in a game, but when it makes up a title’s entire cerebral offering the whole thing smacks of laziness.
Flawed Controls
These flaws could be more easily overlooked if the action element of the game performed better, but it is the combat mechanism which is Saw’s most painful failure. Although there is a healthy array of weaponry at your disposal, ranging from the common-or-garden lead piping to the more exotic mannequin’s arm, you’ll be hard pushed to connect many shots. To put it simply the collision detection is enough to make an Atari 2600 blush. Detective Tapp brandishes his weapon of choice with about as much menace as a foam mallet and, despite the player’s best efforts, will most likely wave it in any direction but that of the marauding lunatic standing in front of him. This often leads to apoplectic levels of frustration, especially when you find yourself with an explosive device attached to Tapp’s head and very limited time to dispatch your enemies.
Konami - Silent Hill Comparisons
All this considered there is still fun to be had from Saw. The game’s developers have made a sterling job of translating the films’ grim and disturbing atmosphere onto the small screen. So much so in fact that when you are creeping down a decaying, glass strewn corridor and all of a sudden a television flickers and Billy the Puppet leers out at you, it is hard not to believe that you’ve really wandered into Jigsaw’s world. And if survival horror is your thing and you get off on puzzle laden mazes and cheap scares then the game’s faults might not be enough to deter you. There are many entries in this genre that are a lot more pitiful. Just don’t be expecting to get another Resident Evil or Silent Hill.
And therein lies Saw: The Video Game’s biggest problem. It will naturally draw comparisons to Konami’s other fright franchise – the Silent Hill series – and it will always come off second best. Silent Hill specialises in complex and intriguing storylines, genuinely chilling atmospheres, a simple yet effective combat routine and lateral puzzles. Saw makes a decent enough attempt to live up to those expectations but doesn’t pull any of them off convincingly. That said, if you are a fan of the films then you’re more than likely to get something out of the game. Just don’t expect to be converted if you’re not.
Rowan Darby - Rowan Darby is a writer and journalist who hovers somewhere indefinite between London and the South West of England. He attended ...
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