SAW is a happy game with bunnies and flowers and cakes. Arch villain Jigsaw’s had a change of heart and is dishing out presents because… no, not really. It’s bloody miserable. It’s also hugely dark, crudely animated, has ropey combat, and the scenarios – despite getting more and more gruesome as the game goes on – start to drag after a few hours. Not much to like then?
Saw: The Videogame positions itself much like Saw: The Movie – an annual dose of interactive gruesomeness. And as with the films we find ourselves begrudgingly returning, not out of enthusiasm, but bleak curiosity. Zombie Studios follows up spine snapping and chest scything with explosive vests, acid baths and drowning tanks, preceded by a literally eye-opening kick-off. ‘Accidentally’ mess up the puzzles and you get to watch Jigsaw’s cruel machinations play out in ropey HD...
Don’t get us wrong, we like bikes as much as the next guys. We like riding bikes, we like looking at bikes, we like watching people rip their kneecaps off by falling off bikes at high speed. We like bicycle kicks, we like the phrase ‘get on your bike’, we even sort of like Burnley FC defender Andre Bikey. But do we like them enough to shun louder, more explosive racing games in favour of a gruelling motorbike simulation that’s as dry as a cactus with a skin condition? Well, that’s where we have our doubts...
It’s not a great advert for your sport when your poster boy/flagship rider jumps ship and joins up with the competition, especially when he then goes and gets his (presumably) hemorrhoid-riddled arse handed to him on a plate by old masters like Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. Poor old James Toseland… baptism of fire or what?
So SBK ‘09 is pretty good. It’s alright. It’s decent. At times, it even dares to be enjoyable. Hell, if you catch it out of the corner of your eye when it thinks you aren’t looking, it even skirts with the idea of being fun. Gasp!
Peculiar? Yes. Gorgeously designed? Indeed. ScaryGirl wields weirdness in abundance to deliver serious charm, but the game's rote platforming and brawling doesn't quite hold up through the more frustration moments.
Another Christmas, another quiz game. Scene It?’s 2007 leap from board game to virtual toy wasn’t quite up to Buzz’s often lofty standards, but marked a promising foray into the genre for Microsoft nonetheless. Now that it’s backed up by casual titles Lips and You’re in the Movies the movie quiz’s second outing is a much stronger prospect than before.
Gaming communities needn’t always involve internet cables and Xbox Live subscriptions. Though the days of frequent sofa-gatherings are almost over, they’re not entirely extinct, and so our Community monocle comes to pass over the third annual Scene It game; a multiplayer-centric film quiz surprisingly defiant in its lack of online play.
Yes, this is Scene It again, but not as we like it.
Sometimes the simple ideas are the best ones, and they really don’t get much more basic than this. Depending on the difficulty you control either one or two ships with the analogue sticks and must swallow enemies of the same colour while dodging the rest.
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