SAW


I thinks its ok to admit you quit playing a video game as long as you admit you quit the game...I will now admit I Quit playing Saw...DO YOU REALIZE HOW SAD THIS IS?

Lets think about it like this...

Final Fantasy XIII: Finished

COD Black ops: Finished

Even Calling: Finished

This makes the first game since starting this that I have not finished. This makes me sad but I do not care. This should be a 1 page review but I have more dignity that that. The fact that I made it to the final chapter is test to how much of a sucker for punishment I am.

Before I start anything let it be said I love the genre of horror. The movies, the comics, the books, the games. Its just that as I stated in my previous article about horror I think we need more horror rather than action in our games. Heavy rain is a game I love and it actually scares me somewhat how this is suppose to be a suspenseful movie yet it scares the living hell out of me, and I still have no damn idea why.

Silent Hill 2 is considered the best installment in Konami's Silent Hill franchise...wait...this was released by Konami? How is this possible? How could Konami attach there name to such garbage...besides Lucha Libre?

Also this game is by Zombie Studios...who made the original America's Army...how do you sink that far?

How do you go from a well received FPS to a shitty ripoff of Condemned and Tetris?

Ok lets get to the Game. In it you play Detective Tapp from the first movie. You are stuck in an asylum after Jigsaw saves you from dying from your wounds near the end of saw 1 spoiler alert. After taking off the trap on your head you end up on a quest of redemption to save 6 people...also no matter what the choice at the end of the game is the one that changes the ending...yeah I said fuck it and went to wikipedia.

And since Saw V shows that Tapp is dead no matter what This game is...entirely pointless.

The controls are basic to any third person shooter but its for melee which to me works but its clunky. The dodge did not work in some battles and actually put me into danger to some of traps that cause an instant death...which to me is the equivalent of fuck you deaths in INfamous...totally unexpected.

The problem is while you can avoid water in INfamous the traps of Saw are almost impossible sometimes. The shotgun quick times are easy to avoid but its the tripwires are hard to disable, mostly due to detection issues. If these issues were fixed before release or with a patch this would not make a problem but these are just some problems I have.
Another thing that the detection issues bother is the combat. The hit detection problem makes simple battles so much more difficult than they should be. You can only hold one item at a time which to me is ok it makes it much more terrifying but once again the hit detection is iffy with hitting enemies, dodging enemies, and...well, everything.

Its made more difficult as you have the shotgun collar trap from the 3rd movie attached to you and if any of the shotgun collars come to you and they do not die you will die, Jigsaws a man of his word...HAHAHAHAH

PUNCH

RYDER: STOP MAKING DARK KNIGHT JOKES!!!

Me: I only made one...

PUNCH

RYDER: GET BACK TO BITCHING!!!

Fine...fucking bitch.

Anyway something I can praise are the graphics. They look good. The dark disgusting décor of a condemned asylum is possibly the best idea for any horror video game. They get it right with broken glass which can hurt you since your barefoot, the shadows can make it look like there's killers around every corners, and I get the feeling that if I am not careful I will fall through a floor and die. This is something I expect from a horror game and they deliver.

Now my biggest problem is the puzzles. Now I understand challenge, I love challenge, I enjoy puzzle games, Tetris, Super Puzzle Fighters, Lumines. I love all of those puzzle games...this is not one of those games.

The puzzles range from insulting to created by Satan and these are the ones on the 5th chapter. You see the point I gave up was with 2 power boxes. Now with a 7 minute time limit and repeated play throughs would mean success. To put it this way. Imagine your doing the family portrait puzzle in RE Code:Veronica. You play through it for a while and you finally figure it out. Even on a speed run you take the time to figure it out. Now did that puzzle ever reset the answers to go in order from worst dressed to best dressed?

No?

That's because that is something that people call a dick move Saw. What Saw does is every single time is randomize the puzzles. Now I would not mind that...if that was on the INSANE difficulty! This is normal mode, NORMAL! This is not normal. Even going through with strategy guides is impossible since many puzzles randomize, this makes even buying a strategy guide useless.

The sad this is if you took the Saw name off, and taken out many of the puzzles and change the plot, you would have a great spiritual successor to the Condemned series. As it is now its a mediocre movie tie in game trying to ride the Saw franchise to hell.

It makes me sad to think that the good (Decent graphics, spooky environment, creepy atmosphere) is outweighed by the bad (Bad controls, terrible combat, bullshit puzzle system, disappointing gameplay). I feel sad that this game exists when a decent Condemned sequel could have came out of this type of engine.

As it is I can only rate it this

Rating:Rent

This only appeals to Saw fans and only the Die Hard Saw fans. This has no market with casual horror fans. I do feel bad cause I wanted to like this.

Stuck in a trap for you
David Phillips

Go ahead...make my sandwich
gamefanstv@yahoo.com