Saw

You didn’t know former Detective Tapp survived the first Saw movie, did you? Danny Glover’s been replaced, but Tobin Bell’s grim voice guides the poor, doomed sap through the crumbling labyrinth of an abandoned lunatic asylum. When you aren’t collecting case files that contain virtually no new information or getting your head vaporized by shotgun tripwires, you’ll work to save the lives of six dipsticks who hate your guts.

Stalking the thick shadows of the detailed and trap-laden environment with only a lighter, camera flash, or flashlight is deliciously oppressive, and it creates an atmosphere of clinging dread. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is a time-pressure hodge-podge of stale circuitry, plumbing, and gear puzzles with a painfully clumsy fighting system bolted on. Whether you’re swinging a pipe or a scalpel, the controls never feel responsive, and rotten collision detection will drive you mad before Jigsaw’s twisted games even have the chance.