Game Review: Saw

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

"Saw"

For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

From: Zombie Studios/Konami

ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, drug reference, intense violence, strong language)

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Say this for "Saw's" video game debut: Be it on purpose or by accident, it pretty bluntly captures (as best a video game can, anyway) what it must feel like to find yourself trapped inside one of the Jigsaw Killer's traps.

Mostly, that's to the game's credit. From the very first moment "Saw" cedes control to the player, you're trapped inside a puzzle, and the only assistance the game provides is a simple overview of the basic controls. The puzzle isn't exactly a mindbender, but it is smarter than your typical "hit switch to open door," and it's awfully nice to see the game respect its audience's intelligence and expect players to figure their way out without help.

That's a trend that continues throughout the entirety of the game, culminating in some tough end-mission brainteasers that have you racing the clock while a person you need to save screams in your ear to hurry up. Those with fragile nerves will find them frayed not only by these moments, but also by a series of other timed challenges in which you need to escape a room before a trap goes off and kills you. In later levels, "Saw" has no issue stringing several of these challenges in exhaustive succession.

But that's not all - and not necessarily because Zombie Studios intended to compound your character's misery. As the storyline explains, there are a number of people who need you dead so they may live, and "Saw's" awkward movement controls and downright clumsy combat controls most certainly give those poor souls a fighting chance.

"Saw" partially circumvents this issue by giving you some nice abilities with regard to barricading enemies off and even luring them, "Bioshock"-style, into some traps of your own. But those same traps - which kill instantly - also work on you, and some of them are easy to spot only if you tiptoe the whole way through. "Saw" occasionally has the gumption to place one of these pitfalls right near the next checkpoint. Passing through a meaty stretch of the game only to miss a single tripwire, die instantly and start over is about as cheaply unsatisfying as it sounds, and if you're the impatient sort, it'll drive you crazy the more it happens.

When all these aspects - time limits, easy-to-miss traps, voices in your ear, your two left feet - work in tandem, "Saw" feels like an exercise in sanity awareness more than a video game.

But that's kind of the point, isn't it? Playing "Saw" isn't intended as a form of feel-good escapism: It's supposed to frighten you, stress you out and propel you into a continuous state of unease. Be it though great ideas or occasionally though incompetent design, that's a task at which this game absolutely succeeds.

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