Saw 2 Flesh & Blood by Konami

Riled Assassin on Sun Oct 31, 2010 7:23 pm

I wasn’t exactly sure what I should expect from Saw 2 flesh and blood partly because it’s the first game I have played based on a film series, and the other reason was I was uncertain as to how the game would play so I will have to admit that my expectations of the game were quite low. I was however pleasantly surprised when I started playing the game, the first thing to strike me was that both the graphics and visual effects are to a very good standard and the levels do feel and look as run down, grimy and most of the time as gory as you would expect.

In Saw 2 flesh and blood you spend your time playing as the victims trapped inside franchise bad guy Jigsaw’s mazes of torture and most of your time will be spent trying to complete puzzles and challenges set by Jigsaw. While the level design is good they do start to feel and look the same after the first level and that feeling continues throughout the majority of the game. There are a good range of puzzle types varying from finding clues hidden around a room to complete a code, pushing switches, linking up circuits on electric panels and even moving objects around to activate switches. These are generally quite simple once you have done them once however you do come across the odd one that will be a bit more difficult than normal. While the puzzles are good you will come across them very regularly and even thought they are slightly different every time you will start to tire of them after a while.

The challenges you get from Jigsaw help to keep the pace up and they are usually the most challenging part of each level. They generally consist of a achieving several objectives across a large section of the map and the ultimate goal is normally about saving someone, killing someone or getting past an obstacle. While the game does have a story it doesn’t appear to have any bearing on the main game itself as most of the time you just go from room to room usually completing a puzzle or dodging traps to get into the next room. The traps get old very quickly as there are only a couple of different ones and the do get over used and are easy to dodge as all you have to do is tap the buttons displayed on the screen and it’s job done.

Occasionally you will have to deal with someone who wants to kill you and combat is dealt with in a fairly poor way as all you do is press the button it displays for you to dodge and then it will display another button for attack and with most weapons it is a one or two strike kill. While it does work you don’t really get any feeling of being involved and in a game which is mostly about death it seems a shame that the game doesn’t have a proper combat system.

For a horror game that spends its time trying to kill everyone it can especially you it never manages to make you feel any sense of dread at what could be in the next room which unfortunately drains most of the tension and atmosphere out of the game. Also there seem to be far too many brutally mutilated bodies left lying around as if you need reminding of what is at stake. The only element of the game that adds to the atmosphere and gives this game any sense of foreboding is the music which really sets a good tone for the game and the voice acting is also very good.

The achievements in this game are going to be only too familiar to most people consisting mostly of achievements for completing story elements, collecting far too many hidden items and beating the best times on all the mini puzzle games. I have a feeling they will leave most completionists very frustrated especially since there are 4 sets of find all items achievements totaling 14 achievements just for finding hidden items on some very dark maps.

All in all the game feels fairly well put together to start with but you quickly start to come across the design flaws of a rather rushed game which will more than likley leave you feeling somewhat disappointed. I didn’t feel any sort of engagement with the story or feel any connection or empathy with any of the characters which left me not caring if they lived or died. I can’t help but think that if they had spent a little more time developing it and put a little more thought into the design of 1 or 2 elements this could have been a very good game but as it is I would describe it as average at best.

Score 6/10