I'll be brutally honest—I didn't expect much from a videogame tie-in to the Saw movies. You know the drill…movie tie-ins suck, blah blah blah. Even news of the project winding up in the capable hands of Konami (who seem to have a pretty keen understanding of horror games) wasn't enough to sell me on the idea that navigating an avatar through a maze of Jigsaw traps would actually be fun.
I'm not sure what it is (maybe the lowered expectations, or maybe that game actually looks decent), but I'm warming up to the idea of a Saw game after viewing this demo footage of the title in action at E3. One of the game's associate producers took GameTrailers on a guided tour and things seem to be shaping up nicely.
Saw the game seems to capture the look and feel of Saw the movies surprisingly well. Granted, there's no shortage of horror games out there aping the whole "character runs through grimy and abandoned locales" motif, but at least in Saw's case, it's done for a reason beyond "it's creepy and everyone else is doing it". You can't really have a Saw game in a clean, well-lit room.
During the tour of the game, viewers get a chance to see some detailed environments (including some gore), notes from Jigsaw, and a booby trap. That's all nice, but I'm a little concerned that we haven't seen any combat or interaction with enemies. The exploration element looks interesting enough, but I'm a little concerned about not seeing any of the action-oriented components of the game.
Oh, and for anyone wondering—Tobin Bell will be voicing Jigsaw in the game.
Saw the game will put players in a series of life-and-death situations this October. Look for it on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.
Find more on The Horror Geek blog.
A film critic by trade, specializing in Euro-horror, cult exploitation, and Asian action cinema, Mike has written reviews for a diverse group of print and online publications. He covers horror news, movies, books, and games at TheHorrorGeek.com and Horrorsquad.com and spent two seasons as The Horror Geek on Comedy Central's pop-culture game show, Beat the Geeks.
Mike's childhood was spent playing videogames any time he got a chance. His parents had a Pong console and his grandmother had an Atari 2600, where Mike cultivated his skills by playing hour upon hour of games like Space Invaders, Berserk, and Asteroids. From those early experiences Mike learned one thing: he loved games.
In 1999, Mike became a staff reviewer at Cinescape Magazine's website where he spent a year learning the craft of game criticism. After internal changes led to Mike leaving Cinescape in late 2000, he joined up with RPGFan in 2001 and spent several years writing reviews for them. Happy, but looking for an opportunity to expound on a wider variety of titles, Mike joined GameCritics.com and hopes to help Chi, Dale, and the rest of the GC staff bring a higher level of respect to the field of game criticism.
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