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Saw II Flesh and Blood PS3 Review - www.impulsegamer.com -

Gameplay 3.5
Graphics 5.0
Sound 6.5
Value 4.0
Distributor: Mindscape
Classification:
MA15+
Review Date:
November 2010
Reviewer:
Ash Pinch

4.7


Saw II: Flesh & Blood

I never had the opportunity to play the first Saw game, so I went into this game with fresh eyes, with no expectations based on previous experience.  For those who have not seen the movies Saw is basically a series of traps for people that have been taken captive by Jigsaw, and these people must escape from these traps, the catch is that in order to escape from the traps they must cause tremendous pain on themselves.  It is a very strange movie to make game from, and one that greatly limits the game play options the developer can play around with.

The game play in SAW II is rubbish; it essentially boils down to finding an item, generally a key or fuse and putting it in a door or a fuse box.  Walking around is not very good either, the controls feel very clunky and the camera does its best to make things hard to see where you are going.  This point was exemplified during what I can only describe as a boss battle, without giving too much away, you have to make the boss charge at you and miss when there is something behind you.  This exaggerated just how lacklustre the controls are.

The combat is Saw II is possibly the most irritating part of the game; these are just more quick time events, with the opponent being beaten after only pressing a few correct buttons.  And inexplicably every weapon is only able to defeat one opponent, I was not aware that a baseball bat broke so easily and consistently.

The puzzles, which should be the main component of this game, are simply not up to par, they either seem to boil down to simple quick time events or memory games.  Those that do not fit into the two previously listed types, are very difficult, they are simple in nature but the game provides no explanation of what you are supposed to do to beat the challenge, this combined with tight time limits known within the Saw franchise create a very dissatisfying experience.  There is some good use of lighting with some of the puzzles, which involve revealing combinations through shining your torch on the wall.  Most of the combinations that you will recover will come from looking through small holes and finding some numbers.    

Graphically, the game is not too bad; the characters have that very shiny appearance that seems to curse so many games that utilise the Unreal engine.  The surroundings are suitably drab but are also very repetitive and it can be difficult to distinguish from one room to the other.  There are also the old invisible walls scattered throughout the entire game.  The models of the characters are not too bad, it is not up to the same standard as the high budget titles but at the end of the day they are passable.

The sound is probably the best aspect of Saw II, the voice acting is pretty good and actually does a good job of drawing the player in, until the actual game play starts again that is.  The ambient sounds are also good and again can draw the player in.  The music does a great job of setting the tone for each area.

Saw II: Flesh & Blood tries to bring a great deal of emotion into a game, this is something that developers have been trying to do for years and very few games have accomplished this effectively.  Saw II fails to deliver this, it is difficult to become attached to the lead character and without this attachment it is difficult to be overly concerned about the characters.  Saw II has good sound but the other aspects of the game cannot be overlooked and make this game difficult to recommend to anyone who is not either a massive fan of the Saw movies, and even then it is hard, or those who enjoyed the first game.





 

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