Mongo Nation

Oh, I Saw what you did there…

By Jeremy Azevedo

Saw: The Video Game has been out for a couple of weeks now… But we figured that you’ve probably seen “Saw VI” or at least considered seeing it by now.  Or maybe you told someone a longwinded boring story about why you’re not going to see it?

Either way, the fact remains that you’ve probably at least thought about it in some capacity. So perhaps you’ve also thought about playing the new Saw video game as well. And you’re probably also wondering if it’s any good or not. Well, we’ve played it, so hopefully our experience can help you make an informed decision. I promise it won’t be like that one time when we told you wouldn’t get sick from drinking your own pee. We just wanted to see if you would do it. But it won’t happen again. Real talk.

Sucks to be you.

So yeah, Saw: The Video Game. It’s about 100 times better than most movie spin-offs I’ve played, not that this is saying much. Movie spin-off games are notoriously bad. But the dudes that make the movies made a smart decision by contracting Konami to do the game, thanks to their experience with the Silent Hill series. Saw looks and plays a lot like those Silent Hill titles, which is both good and bad. Everything is pretty dark, but you always have a light source to see your way around. The controls are a little tankish, like old-school Resident Evil and the combat is a little stiff. But if you’ve played survival horror games that came prior to Resident Evil 4, it’ll all seem pretty familiar.

The darkness in Saw actually creates a lot of tension. Playing the game at night is a likely to cause you to experience a bit of anxiety.  And if that doesn’t do it, the combat will. See, Jigsaw sewed a key into your body and told everyone else in the joint that they have to tear it out of you in order to escape. So you’ve got that going for you. The combat takes very specific timing, but is actually pretty fun once you get it down. Especially when you start using traps! But it’s kind of f**ked when you walk into someone else’s trap like an idiot, and getting your head liquefied in the process. The save points are sort of far apart at times, and there were a couple of instances in which I had to repeat puzzles or encounters unnecessarily because I wasn’t walking around looking at my feet.

Aw hell naw!

Speaking of feet! Your character isn’t wearing shoes throughout the game, which sucks because there’s broken glass all over the goddamn place. You’d think that maybe there would be a “put on some shoes so you can stop walking around on hypodermic needles and various other crap like a f**king idiot” power-up, but sadly, this is not the case. There’s lots of stuff to clobber people with though, from baseball bats and lampshades to table legs and mannequin arms. So you’ve got that going for you at least. Read the rest of this entry →

A great action movie, an even better drinking game.

By Jeremy Azevedo

If you didn’t already go see “Punisher: War Zone” in the theaters back in December, I’m not surprised. You can only see so many superhero films in a year and with “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” to compete with, “Punisher” didn’t stand much of a chance with it’s hard-R rating and shaky cinematic past.

But that doesn’t mean you should miss the opportunity to see it now, as it is one of the most shockingly brutal comic book movies ever made. And if the continued success of horror franchises like “Saw” tells us anything, it’s that you people like blood, and “Punisher: War Zone” has that in spades. The best way I’ve heard anyone describe this film is that it is essentially a horror film in which the killer is actually the good guy.

Jigsaw: Reconstructive surgery (massive) fail.

One thing I really loved about “Punisher” was that, despite being a relaunch, it didn’t dwell on the origin of the character. Everybody that sees this film most likely already has at least a passing familiarity with the character and his motivations. Nothing bothers me more than wasting 40 minutes of a film setting up a backstory and then either skimping on the action or running overlong (I swear I will walk out of the next superhero movie that runs over 2 ½ goddamn hours long). “Punisher” begins with action, segueways into even bloodier action and then culminates with still more insanely violent action. The film begins with a dude choking a bitch and ends with a gunshot, I shit you not.

Not only is “Punisher: War Zone” fun to watch, but it also makes a great drinking game! Of course I wouldn’t advocate this to anyone under the age of 21, but those of you who are old enough should try this:

Take a drink whenever:

Someone is brutally executed by decapitation, explosion, impalement, or by any means other than a gunshot
Someone sniffs coke or makes a cocaine reference
One of the actors who are speaking with an accent sound like they are faking it
You see a broken mirror
There is a close-up of Frank Castle lasting 10 seconds or more in which he says absolutely nothing
Anyone says the name “Jigsaw”, “Castle” or “Soap”
Blood splashes on the camera

Are you hammered yet?

Handgun marksmenship: You’re doin’ it wrong

If you are any kind of Punisher fan or just like a violent action film every now and again, you owe it to yourself to check out “Punisher: War Zone” on DVD. This is the Punisher you remember from the comic books, for better or for worse, and I doubt there will ever be another Punisher movie that captures the spirit of the character as well as this.

CraveOnline Rating: 8.5 out of 10
+1 if you are a big supporter of the death penalty
-2 if you prefer your superheroes to be clad in colorful spandex