La Saw film saga has never had a very solid videogame counterpart. In 2009, the video game of the same name, released on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, gave fans of the Riddler serial killer hope, but despite a faithful atmosphere, well-structured puzzles and consistent with the context of the film, the major flaws limited its potential. . Same fate had its sequel: Flesh & Blood.
The indie landscape could rearrange things, but it's not that easy to recreate the same claustrophobic and overwhelming feelings of Saw, yet the Polish studio Airem tries it with its Play With Me, title available only on PC.
Let's find out together if Play With Me is a worthy one videogame heir of Saw or if you get lost among the many titles that revolve around the series without ever being able to hit it.
Play With Me: a reporter in trouble
The game intro is narrow and basic: the investigative journalist Robert Hawk he is driving, in the company of his wife Sara, to celebrate the wedding anniversary, when an accident puts an end to their journey. We wake up as Robert, we have a very bad headache and our wife is missing. We are tied up, the room in which we are locked is not reassuring and it now seems clear that it wasn't an accident.
Investigating in the first room, we read a newspaper article written by Robert himself, in which he speaks of Illusion, a serial killer who is terrorizing the city. It may have been his doing, Robert and Sara may have fallen victim to yet another of him perverse game. It is up to us to solve the many puzzles that will lead us to the exit of every single room, hoping that there is still time to save ourselves and those we love.
The plot does not shine for originality and more or less follows the same narrative schemes of films and games of the same genre. Unfortunately, the tension never really rises to unbearable levels, indeed, in some rooms it is also quite calm, since you can look around with relative calm.
Play With Me, in fact, is not a dynamic adventure, but to all intents and purposes a point and click in which we will only be able to look at what we have around by moving the view with the mouse and clicking on the objects that seem useful to the cause, documents, notes and of course the puzzles. Entering the inventory is also possible combine the collected items.
Airem's video game is more like Escape Room than to Saw. Various films with that title have been directed (in 2017 by Will Wernick and in 2019 by Adam Robitel, for example) and, although they are not linked together like the chapters of Saw, they propose a classic scheme: group of boys participating in a escape room, many "self-contained" rooms in which to solve the puzzles, but the impossibility of really getting out alive.
In Play With Me, the protagonist participates in a forced way in the sadistic game, but the script is exactly that, with us forced to find the combination to be entered on an alpha-numeric keypad to open the door and find ourselves in another room. One after another, dozens of rooms full of puzzles and the scent of death.
Enigmas, between illusion and perspective
The most interesting part of Play With Me is represented by the puzzles that show how the development studio wanted it focus more on puzzle infrastructure rather than on plot, characters and stylistic exercises. As in any self-respecting point and click, it will be necessary to carefully look at every detail to get us out of the terrifying rooms that keep us in captivity. In the shaded areas it will be essential to shed light to find objects and clues otherwise invisible to the eye. The matches to light come to our aid simulating the rubbing movement with the mouse of the same on the box.
This is, indeed, the peculiarity of the puzzles and situations proposed: we are used to clicking on an object, then clicking on the interaction area in which we want to use it and that's it; in Play With Me, however, we will have to interact differently, more realistic and less mechanical. If there is a valve to turn, it will be our job to rotate the mouse counterclockwise or move it left and right to move a heavy object.
The puzzles then play on the perspective and who they ask to take action in the first person, breaking the fourth wall: in some cases, we will have to move away from or closer to the PC screen to be able to read codes or see otherwise unidentifiable images. In some locations there are computers that represent separate mini-games that will ask us to write the answer directly with our keyboard.
There will also be puzzles in which we will have to put our hands on the screen to cover some parts of an image or a writing to be able to discover the hidden solution.
From this point of view, Play With Me stimulates the player to think in an alternative way, without forcing him to click everywhere. The longevity of the title depends on how much you manage to be "smart" and mentally elastic. In principle, a couple of hours, maximum three, should be enough to complete the adventure.
Technically, we don't cry out for a miracle, both from a graphic and a sound point of view. In the first case, we have fixed screens that give a good idea of ​​an unhealthy and artfully built place to physically and psychologically torture a person, in the second case the soundtrack emphasizes the various moments without overdoing it and limiting itself to fairly basic effects and music to such an experience.
Final comment
Play With Me is a good point and click that tries to emulate the atmosphere and dynamics of Saw, proposing well-structured puzzles that invite the player to think in a totally different way, with a direct interaction of the player himself. Unfortunately, its static nature, the not particularly inspired story, the characters that do not raise the narrative quality and a basic technical infrastructure do not allow Play With Me to become a real reference model in all respects. However, Play With Me remains an enjoyable title for horror / thriller escape room fans.
Thanks to Airem for providing us with a Steam copy of the game.
