Game-A-Maniacs Hands On - Saw: The Game

"I want to play a game."

Ah those famous words spoken from a creepy little doll named Billy riding a tricycle. How can you reject such an offer?

Walking around the show floor I stopped by the Konami booth to see what they had to offer. One of the 1st things that immediately caught my eye was the rather large sign for Saw: The Game. Being a fan and having seen all 5 movies, I had to play it.

I finally stepped up to booth, turned the sound up and started to play. The game starts you off as most of the movies do: as a victim sitting in a chair, waking up to some horrible trap at the same time a television turns on to vaguely tell you why you're there.

Unlike most of the movies however, you can survive this 1st trap. This time around the 1st trap is actually placed on a main character: Detective Tapp (Danny Glover's character from the 1st movie). Apparently Jigsaw decided it was time to let Tapp have his own game. While Danny Glover is not voicing the character, Tobin Bell did do the voice over work for Jigsaw. So we at least get some awesome Jigsaw vocals.

While I was playing I looked around for someone to walk me through the demo and tell me a few things about the game. I came up empty handed. I even pretended to be stuck somewhere to see if someone would come by. No such luck.

I overheard that the game takes places between Saw 1 and Saw 2 and focuses on Detective Tapp's obsession with Jigsaw. The 1st puzzle was the bear trap puzzle and you had to rotate one of the thumb sticks, then press the appropriate button to unlock one side. You then repeated the action to unlock the second side, then finally moved the thumbstick up and down quickly to remove the trap just as it's about to spring. It definitely has the sound and look of the movies pretty damn nailed. I could feel myself starting to get freaked out as the time was winding down and the music was escalating.

In addition to the quick time events, and some combat, the game offers puzzle elements as well. I had to close bathroom stall doors that revealed partially painted numbers on them, with the other parts painted on the mirror. Then I had to line up my vision correctly to get the number to a combination lock to unlock a door to move on.

Visually the game looks like a Saw movie. Very dark hallways, eerie bathrooms and so on. There are moments when you need to investigate things and for some reason the game flashes images on the screen in what I only assume is an attempt to scare you. I just sort wondered what was going on. There are a lot of nods to the movies including seeing the aftermath of the barb wire trap. There wasn't a ton of blood that I saw, and considering that this was based on very bloody movies, I was pretty let down.

There was a moment in the game where you have to shove your arm into a toilet bowl filled with used surgical needles. When you do the game zooms in on the side of the bowl with an x-ray like effect so you can move your arm around. Cringe-worthy in theory, but seeing it as a x-ray made me feel less creeped out.

The controls were a little stiff at first, but I got used to it. Again there was no one around to answer my questions so I don't know what stage of the game I was playing (alpha, beta, etc), when it's going to be released, or any other info of that kind. I even waited another 10 minutes after my demo ended to see if I could get someone on camera to talk about it.

I guess everyone is too scared of what will happen to them if they talk about the game.