Saw The Video Game (Xbox 360)

First off, I must say that I have never seen any of the movies. Strange I know, seeing as I'm about to review the game but, here we go!

The game was released in 2009 which I got that corresponding Christmas, as I thought it fitted in with the Christmas spirit, obviously. It starts straight off with you in a reverse bear trap you have to quickly remove, before it times out and kills you. You are instantly thrown into the fear and intensity of the Saw franchise. You play as Detective Tapp, who I believe is a character from the film series. You get the idea that the environment isn't safe when you find out there are booby traps everywhere. This keeps you alert and on your toes, making you worried about opening a door incase you were greeted by a shotgun trap.

The story is interesting as every victim the Jigsaw Killer has captured, is someone that relates to Tapp, whether it's someone Tapp has questioned while trying to find Jigsaw or someone he has wronged in their eyes. It all seems to link together, Tapp has been trying to capture the Jigsaw Killer and in the process his partner, Detective Sing was killed.

The graphics are pretty poor as the characters look very cartoony and there's a number of texture problems and these are even visible in the cut scenes.  I wasn't a big fan of the camera angle; third person, over the shoulder. It makes for awkward movement and vulnerability as you have to turn all the way around to see behind you. There is also some glitchy-ness, when you close doors and enemies run up to then their hands start showing through the doors and the worst thing that happened in the game, was when going through a trap, I glitched under the map and was killed. Thankfully it only happened once.

The combat in the game is by far the worst I've experienced, it's slow and clunky. Sometimes I couldn't even swing my weapon and would just get constantly hit by the other enemies and I'd be killed. The executions were awful, as an enemy was on the floor and you'd keep hitting them, they were just still as if you weren't actually hitting them at all.

Some of the minigames were enjoyable like the lock picking, linking up the three symbols and opening locked cabinets pressing the right buttons as they spin around and time it correctly. There's also a bunch of case files and patient files you can find and read, these are probably great collectables to a fan of the franchise with their links to the movies and characters.

The game did have a sequel released in the following year, but I'm not yet sold on whether I want to play it after the first game. Maybe I'll try the movies...

3.2/10