Saw: The Video Game: The Review

Editor’s Note: This review was originally intended for publication late last year, but was misplaced by yours truly. My apologies to Zack – Will

Do I want to play a game? Yeah sure, why not? I’m always down for a good bout of Tetris, but with Fall winds rattling my bones, scary games are definitely on the menu. Saw? The game? A game of Saw? Now I know the high brow savant in me wants to slide this concept away and move on to something… European, I need to honestly admit that Saw, the obnoxiously successful torture porn series of films that have a new entry annually if only to prove how much thought and effort is needed for the next installment, is not nearly as offensive as a video game. In fact I find that most things that tend to make you groan in films are usually the very same things you’ll fist pump for in a video game. So perhaps, conceptually, Saw: The Video Game may have something going for it. Thus begging the question, do you want to play THIS game?

You are Detective Tapp, one of the detectives aggressively hounding Jigsaw, the main antagonist of the franchise. Tapp was apparently shot in the first Saw film, though I’m no expert on the subject. So instead I have come to the conclusion that Detective Tapp was on his way to his buddy’s Bill Cosby dress up party when he was shot and kidnapped by the Jigsaw killer then awoken in a house o’ nightmares. If I have to give the writing team one medal it is for coming up with a great reason for complete strangers to want to tear Tapp a new one. You discover that Jigsaw has surgically implanted a key somewhere in Tapp’s body, and it is this key that so happens to be the path freedom for every other victim in the building. The way the encountered enemies incorporate Jigsaw’s lore is also fairly clever, from blinded brawlers who have steel boxes mounted to their head, to some with their hands bound to a stick of dynamite. Things descend into dumb pretty quickly though. To every victim of Jigsaw’s torture is some kind of justification, though they are really stretching it with this one. Tapp’s moral failing is that he’s just too obsessed with Jigsaw, and so Jigsaw decided to punish him. It just feels like the needle wagging its finger at the junkie. I guess the obvious cure for Tapp would be for Jigsaw to stop, y’know, killing people, but Jigsaw acts above it, and in this game especially rubs off as more hypocritical and smug than interesting. Tapp’s carrot on a string is to use this opportunity to figure out who Jigsaw is once and for all, though since the films have already treaded on that ground, it’s not nearly as tantalizing for the player.

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Saw Director to Helm Castlevania Film

BloodyDisgusting broke news that James Wan, director of the original Saw film, will be directing the live action Castlevania film. Castlevania is one of Konami’s longest running video game franchises, dating back to 1986 on the original Nintendo.

The central story thread of Castlevania deals with the Belmont clan, a family of vampire hunters who wage an eternal battle against the forces of Dracula.  I’m a huge fan of the series, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is hands down one of the best games ever made. Although the series is a big seller in North America, Castlevania was created in Japan and has a very Japanese aesthetic.  Wan had this to say about the project,

The thing I love about what Konami did with Castlevania was taking the iconic Dracula mythology and Eastern-European setting, and retelling it with a Japanese pop-cultural sensibility… That’s the East-meets-West tone I want to visually expand on for the film. I’m thrilled by the opportunity to make a highly stylized, fantasy, action film that focuses on the gothic storyline and the cool, anime-like characters.

The film adaptation which previously had Paul W.S. Anderson of Resident Evil fame attached to direct, is due out some time in 2011.  Wan’s most recent feature Death Sentence was highly entertaining.  I really liked the original Saw and actually met Wan at the Midnight Madness screening of the film.  Very cool guy, I’m happy to see Wan in the director’s seat for this; he knows how to do dark and scary and if he can bring in that unique Japanese sensibility the series had then we’re gold.

Had Anderson ended up directing the film, I’m sure it would have starred Milla Jovovich—his wife—as a female vampire hunter and feature plenty of zombies and bad wire work.  I’m right and you know it Anderson!