Saw
Do you wanna play a shitty game?
"I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me."
--MeFUN FACT: Saw was one of, if not the first game I ever watched someone stream. That was back when Twitch wasn't disgusting and bad. That guy actually got me interested in PC gaming because he also played Killing Floor 1 and I thought it was soooo cool being a military guy killing zombies with a katana in first person. KK back to the review.
SPEAKING of disgusting and bad, I actually own all the Saw movies. By "all", I just mean 1-7, because the new ones don't matter.
I don't like violence, I especially don't like gore, but the Saw movies have some very interesting plot twists.
In case you don't know, Saw is about some genius engineer, JIGSAW, who got scammed by his insurance company when he got cancer, so he decides to just start killing people he deems unappreciative of their lives.
With a TWIST: he doesn't outright kill them, he sets up elaborate torture scenarios that force them to mutilate themselves and/or solve puzzles/riddles/find keys very quickly, etc. or ELSE they'll be killed, usually even more brutally. They can toooootally survive though, it's all up to them!
Therefore because he gives them """a chance""" to survive, he ACTUALLY "doesn't kill anyone". Like many great engineers, Jigsaw's philosophy isn't very impressive.
But he's still a genius, and still plays a mean game of 4D chess, which leads to all kinds of shocking twists and turns.
THE GAME lacks this entirely. It's repetitive, hardly tests your mind at all, and once you get the hang of it, it can't even be called survival horror anymore.
And I love it and it's great.
The game has you playing as an ex-cop, Detective Tapp, who's become obsessed with finding Jigsaw after his partner fell victim to one of his traps. Well Tapp's been copnapped by Jigsaw and is now trapped in an asylum filled with a bunch of violent uh... criminals? Probably? It's never really explained where these dozens of violent thugs came from, and the game's trophies/achievements just calls them "Minions"lmao
Jigsaw put a key inside your body that would let the other prisoners escape, so everyone wants to kill you and get their freedom.
Thankfully, every enemy in the game is not only a complete idiot, but physically unable to withstand blows from your heavy fists of the law.
What do I mean? Well for starters, as you explore the asylum, you'll find plenty of opportunities to trap and screw over the people trying to kill you. For example, some enemies have a shotgun collar that activates a timer within proximity of you. Dispatching these unfortunate suckers is as simple as running away and bolting a door behind you. A few seconds later, their heads will be blown off, and you'll be free to loot their corpses for some magic health syringes or other resources.
A similar enemy has a spike trap on their heads activated by physical contact. Punch them once and their timer begins. Dance on away from them, and it's GAME OVER for them.
Not all enemies have traps on them though, and the variety with which you can handle them is pretty neat. A blinded berserker with screws through his eyes is charging around looking for you? Just tip-toe past him and don't engage him at all. Or lure him into a puddle, plug a fuse in, and electrocute him. Some guy's chasing you with a spiked bat? Why not reset one of Jigsaw's shotgun traps and lure him into it? Enemies do not try to avoid any of these tricks, at all. A puddle will be very-visibly electrified, and they'll charge right into it to try to get at you.
There's also a ton of melee weapons to use in the game for the janky combat system, from table legs to broom handles to axes. There's even a few revolvers, usually given as rewards for solving optional puzzles behind doors you can lockpick. You can also learn how to craft a few different traps of your own which you can use whenever you want.
None of this really matters though because remember the heavy fists of the law I mentioned earlier? That's right. You start the game with the MOST POWERFUL WEAPON: your fists.
If you punch enemies, you can stun-lock them to death. None of them can stop this. None of them. It's more effective than any other weapon in the game. Even the final boss of the game, a 7-foot tall guy in a pig mask who stalks you the entire game and can kill you in 2 or 3 hits, will FALL to your police brutality. Dodge his heavy attack and uppercut him over and over and over and over, and he's donezo in about a minute.
Maybe this isn't the funnest way to play. But it might be the funniest. On my most recent playthrough, I picked up a revolver about halfway through the game, and I did not fire it once. I dropped it every time an enemy approached, punched them to death, picked it back up, and went on my way.
This kind of conservative resource-management is useful because Pighead can be killed by emptying your revolver into him. But he can also be trapped inside a cage and electrocuted to death for free. There's plenty of ways to kill him: it's a GREAT final boss. The entire game is just like that: FUN and full of possibilities.
Okay, maybe not FULL of them, but they're a decent amount there. The asylum is "open-ish": you can explore fairly large areas of it before moving to the next "level". So you usually have options as to how you want to dispatch enemies--even if it means backtracking to get an enemy into a trap. And that's what makes the game fun. It has to be that, because everything else about it is pretty boring. You'll solve the same puzzles(a few of them pretty fun) over and over again, you'll stick your hand inside toilets full of needles over and over again to get keys, none of it's particularly challenging.
Still, the game will kill you if you let it. Of course you have no shoes on and there's broken glass scattered around some places, so you have to be careful where you walk. Traps are behind many doors, waiting to blow your head off if you're not careful. Enemies, stupid as they are, can hit like trucks. You have to manage your health and resources wisely.
But if you do, you can charge through the game confidently, mocking Jigsaw and his stupid little recordings the whole time.
Story-wise, the game's just clownish. It's really the kind of game that makes you talk back to it, which is pretty enjoyable. You will rescue about half a dozen people from being brutally murdered in these kinda "boss puzzle" scenes where you have to solve extra-hard puzzles, and instead of any form of "thank you", every single one of them will be mad at you because "YOU'RE THE REASON WE'RE IN HERE". This exact line will be repeated by almost every enemy in the game as well. It's hilarious.
After you save someone, you'll always somehow be separated from them, so don't expect any relief. You're in it by yourself the whole time. But once you learn all of Jigsaw's tricks--which you will in the first hour or so--it's really not very scary.
Overall though, the game is fun. It's just FUN. Trapping enemies. Beating them up, either with your fists, or any of the numerous weapons lying around and looting their bodies for health syringes or lockpicks-- The game has a "no two playthroughs are the same!" kind of feel to it. Even if they're MOSTLY the same. It's a decent length too, and has TWO DIFFERENT ENDINGS, WOWWWW. Spoiler: Jigsaw always wins. 4D chess master.
I can probably think of a bunch of petty complaints, but I think my main one is that you HAVE to save everyone from the traps. I think it would have been better if the game continued even if you just flat-out let people die. For example, a journalist was trapped in a machine that would pull his limbs apart. I let him die, because he's a journalist. Why should I be punished with a Game Over for that? Thankfully the game at least rewards you with a cutscene of him dying anyway after you rescue him, but I don't understand why it was really NECESSARY to the story for him, and even the actually-innocent people, to live for you to continue. Your success in rescuing people would have made a better determination of the ending instead of what it is: you just pick which ending you want. MEH. It's not bad, but it could have added something to it, if maybe one of the endings was unavaiable if you did something bad, like let the journalist live.
Anyway, SAW is a bad game. But I recommend it, because it's a lotta fun. It's got good atmosphere, and lets you roleplay as either a scared survivor or an angery unstoppable cop charging through everything.