Saw
Dying to meat you
"Dying to play?" asks the not so innocent videogame strap-line for Saw. Although not necessarily willing to exchange our earthly coil for a go on Konami's film licence survival horror, we were certainly happy to offer up an hour of it to see how the game stacked up.
The game started in the hands of Brash Entertainment, who upon going broke passed the baton to Konami to finish off and release. In the Konami stable, Saw is becoming more and more the spiritual successor to their other survival horror franchise, Silent Hill.
The game is slated for an October release on 360, PS3 and Windows, and as you would expect is an adaptation of the Saw film series. The date is planned to coincide with the film release of Saw VI, which if nothing else is some joined up marketing noodle. The game will also tie up some of the loose ends from the first couple of films, 'fleshing out the fiction' as the box will no doubt say. It all takes place in an abandoned asylum with different Jigsaw traps to hamper progress and disgust the unwitting.
As such the gameplay and plot nod more than a wink towards their Silent Hill games. Here, the player receives a video message from the Jigsaw Killer. This centres on detective David Tapp's alleged kidnapping by said Jigsaw Killer. He finds himself in an abandoned asylum where he is forced to work through several encounters with dark characters. Much of this plot focuses around the medical insertion of a crucial key into David Tapp's stomach and the desire of the other inhabitants to retrieve it by any means.
Our hands-on session was through an early level in the game where we encountered our fair share of traps and gruesome scenes. The game does its best to mirror the shock-horror nature of the films. It's the sort of experience that would be ideal to take a prospective girlfriend to see at the local flicks. Plenty of 'jump' moments where she will need to hold onto something.
As a game though, this is a little less of a viewer activity. The puzzle nature of the action made everyone want to put in there two penneth about what to do to survive. There are a fare share of trigger and leaver puzzles to tax the mind, although these are quite derivative. Others though offer more noel challenges and make use of the strong visuals.
In one scene for instance you have to follow instructions on toilet cubicle doors to unlock a safe which provides instructions to use the mirrors in the bathroom to match writing on the opposite wall so that a clue can be read. Simple and effective.
Once a particular area has been solved you are granted access to the next level. Some talk has been made of ethical and deterministic choices, but our hands-on stuck to a linear progression through the world. Although more options would have been nice, this tighter, directed experience really added to the sense of drama - and the game's ability to jump out and shout "Boo!" at you now and again. I wasn't scared, honest...
Although still a little way off release and no doubt lacking some final polish, the game looked pretty impressive. It runs on the Unreal Engine 3 engine as licensed by Epic Games, and looks on a par with most other titles that use the tech (perhaps barring Gears of War). This is complemented by some suitably eerie background music and effects.
The game sticks to its third-person remit throughout, and offers the player an automatic camera that can be tweaked as required. Through the game you can make use of various weapons and tools. These start at the crowbar end of things but to work up to include firearms.
As we came away from our preview time, perhaps the biggest testament to the game was a slight sickness of stomach we left with. The general tone and claustrophobia of the experience, along with the pressure-puzzle set pieces kept us on the edge of our wits all the way through.
Although there isn't anything hugely original here, the game looks to do what it needs to - re-interpret the franchise for a gaming audience. We'd have like to see a little less commitment to mimicking the filmic experience, but the quality here should be enough to make Saw well received with their certain area of the gaming public.
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