Saw II for the PS3 is a game based between the second and third Saw films, with you the player taking the part of Detective Tapp’s son wandering around a house of horrors wondering what happened to daddy.

The first Saw game scored high on atmosphere and low on game play, Konami obviously didn’t think there was anything wrong with this so have produced a sequel which has the same strengths and weaknesses.

The game has you playing Michael who, like the films, is stuck in an undisclosed location, having to play Jigsaw's games. Jigsaw is villain who is high on his own moral indignation at the world, and who shows this by torturing and butchering people who have strayed from the path of righteousness.

The game's opening gives you a pretty good idea of what you’re in for as you are placed in the role of a character who has to dig open his own eye to retrieve a key before the headgear, he is wearing, shuts and squashes his head. The graphics are detailed and suitably gruesome; however the controls can be infuriating. To get the key you have to push various buttons in sequence, the sequence is shown in the television screens behind your head. So the square or triangle is fairly straight forward but the command ‘left’ is infuriatingly vague, there are many part of my control pad which could be described as left. Once you get loose you're into the game proper.

Saw II has the same linier feel to it; in fact it feels more like an extension of the first game rather than anything new. So you get to wander around, partially solving puzzles - some good, some not so - and engaging in button pressing combat.

The atmospheric presentation is superb, but after an hour the game starts to feel repetitive, not helped by the less than intuitive control interface and the annoying random traps. Slowly the tension, which has built up in the first hour, starts to dissipate as you have to solve another circuit board puzzle to open another door.

Fans of the films and the first game will love another slice of appropriately creepy Jigsaw, with the chance to relive some of the films puzzles, but the longevity and replay value of the game is somewhat limited.

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Charles Packer