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Saw: The Video Game is a horror video game based on the Saw movies, developed by Zombie Studios and published by Konami in 2009 in tandem with the release of Saw VI.

Set between Saw and Saw II, the game follows David Tapp from the first film, who has been placed in an abandoned insane asylum by Jigsaw to go through a lethal game of his own.

The game was followed by Saw II: Flesh & Blood, which was released alongside Saw 3D.


This game has examples of:

  • Bedlam House: The files you find about the operation of the mental hospital back in the day certainly paint it as this. In addition to using treatments which would be considered barbaric today, the hospital implemented cost-cutting measures such as not administering painkillers to patients who were in physical pain, but their mental state made them docile regardless of it.
  • Boring, but Practical: There are several different melee weapons you can pick up. However, fighting barehanded is very effective as your attacks come out so rapidly you can interrupt enemy attacks and effectively Stun Lock them.
  • Discontinuity Nod: Amanda from the first three films shows up: kidnapped again by Jigsaw for relapsing into drug use after escaping her initial trap. This contradicts Saw III, which reveals Amanda was recruited by Jigsaw immediately after said first trap.
  • Downer Ending: Whichever ending you choose, it's unhappy. The only difference is whether you end up committing suicide or being locked in a mental asylum, forever believing you're trapped in one of Jigsaw's games.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: You are in Jigsaw's little game, after all. And everyone wants to kill you because you have the key to the front door sewn into your chest.
  • Exact Time to Failure: Repeatedly and in some absurd situations such as telling down to the second how long it takes until a overpressurized boiler explodes.
  • Exposition Break: This occurs numerous times through the game. Very often the door you need to go through is locked tight until you pick up a tape and listen to Jigsaw's exposition, or watch a piece of exposition between Jigsaw and one of his test subjects.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Since it takes place after the first film, we all know Jigsaw will still be at large by the end of the game. And if you've seen Saw V, you would know that Tapp had died.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Happens to David in the "Truth" ending.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: It's revealed that Obi actually wanted Jigsaw to put him in a test. He was saved by Tapp, much to his disappointment, so he got himself recaptured.
  • Late to the Tragedy: You come across a few rooms of others that were playing Jigsaw's games. The blood splatters on the wall should tell you how they fared.
  • Multiple Endings: There's two - one canon and one alternative. In the last room of the game, you are tasked with choosing one of two doors; one is marked "Truth", and one is marked "Freedom". Jigsaw explains that "Freedom" will allow Tapp to leave the asylum alive, while "Truth" will satisfy his obsession with catching Jigaw (but will also cost him dearly).
    • Freedom: Tapp leaves the asylum alive, and is hailed as a hero by those he saves, but his obsession with catching Jigsaw eventually overtakes him and he commits suicide; due to Tapp being shown as dead during Saw V, and the plot of the sequel, this is the canon ending.
    • Truth: Tapp's pursuit of a cloaked figure he believes to be Jigsaw ends with the person dying from a Jigsaw trap; the person was actually Melissa Sing, the wife of Tapp's deceased partner and one of the victims he saves earlier in the game - she had been tasked by Jigsaw to keep Tapp playing the game in order to have a chance of seeing her son alive again. As a result of her death, Tapp suffers a complete mental breakdown and is placed in another asylum, still believing he is playing Jigsaw's game.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Tapp finds himself in the "Reverse Bear Trap" from the first Saw at the start of the game.
    • The game begins in a small bathroom with a dirty tub and a very familiar hacksaw in it, very similar to the trap room from Saw
    • An early NPC dies to the Venus Flytrap mask from the opening of Saw II.
    • Level 5's trap involves saving a man named Obi from being burned alive, much like a seemingly different Obi's trap in Saw II.
    • Tapp is repeatedly forced to dig through a pit of used needles for a key, much like Amanda in Saw II.
    • Tapp is also sometimes forced to reach into a vat of acid for a key, exactly like Kerry in Saw III
    • Shotgun tripwires like the one that killed Sing in Saw are rigged all throughout the game.
    • A newspaper mentions that Detective Hoffman- a main character from Saw IV onwards- has taken over the Jigsaw investigation following Tapp's dismissal.
    • Through most of the game Tapp is wearing the shotgun collar from Saw III
    • A puzzle involves sending pigs into a meat grinder so that their rotten guts fill a chamber, very similar to the Judge's trap in Saw III
    • When setting the game's brightness level, you see a message "See as I See", one of several of Jigsaw's mantras from Saw IV.
    • The Truth ending reveals Melissa's mouth sewn shut for her game, exactly like Art in the opening of Saw IV.
    • Jeff, the hostage that Sing rescues in the first Saw, is the victim you must rescue in Level 6. In his game (which involves a game of Memory), there's another reference to the first movie - the matching symbol for a hacksaw is a severed foot.
    • A trap involves Tapp being locked in a freezer and sprayed with water; similar to a trap in Saw III.
    • Jennings' trap involves a bladed pendulum slowly lowering, near identical to Hoffman's trap from the opening of Saw V.
  • Nintendo Hard: Some of the puzzles are extremely frustrating.
  • Oh, Crap!: Oswald's reaction to realising he's talking to Jigsaw.
  • One-Hit Kill: Shooting any of the other participants is pretty much a guaranteed instant kill every single time.
  • Redemption Equals Death: After being a ruthless newspaper journalist who spent his time badmouthing police and dragging Tapp's name through the mud, Oswald manages to redeem himself by sincerely apologizing to Tapp for what he had done and agreeing to work together with him to escape the asylum, only to be killed almost immediately afterward.
  • Riddle for the Ages: It's never revealed who the Pighead in this game, or the one in the following game are.
  • Solve the Soup Cans: Most of the game's major puzzles are in line with Jigsaw's usual M.O., being connected to some kind of death trap. However:
    • A lot of doors and cabinets are locked by short minigames, even though this presents no real obstacle or danger to Tapp. Some of these may have existed before Jigsaw took control of the place, but others can't have been there.
    • Midway through the game, you're unable to proceed until you collect two bags of puzzle pieces from elsewhere in the asylum, then assemble them into a picture of Billy the Puppet. Actually getting the pieces takes time and effort, but arranging them properly is just a matter of patience.
  • Title: The Adaptation: The game is also known as Saw: The Video Game.
  • Understatement: One of the loading screen blurbs warns against activating tripwires, as they generally cause "unpleasant surprises". Tripwires are always connected to a nearby shotgun trap, so the unpleasant surprise will be Tapp's head being blown apart.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: All the people Tapp has to save blame him for being kidnapped by Jigsaw and will quickly let you know it once you free them from their traps. Subverted with Oswald and Jennings. While Oswald is initially angry with Tapp, he soon calms down and apologizes to him for slandering him in his newspapers. Jennings, while hostile toward after being saved, is revealed in the second game to have come to genuinely feel gratitude toward Tapp after being freed.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: C'mon, you know full well you wanna see how many ways you can eviscerate Tapp and how the people he's supposed to save eat it.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: Halfway into the game, Tapp gets a shotgun collar put on him. Which will start beeping when he comes within distance of a certain enemy. After a few second unless the enemy is felled or you pull back, boom. Likewise a few enemies have the same collar or the venus flytrap one (from part two). After you kill them and walk away, you can hear the traps going off. There is actually an achievement tied to avoiding one of these enemies until their trap activates; instantly killing him for you.
  • You Don't Look Like You: Due to the designers not being able to secure Danny Glover's likeness, David Tapp looks almost completely different in the game.

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