"Random murder in video game format!"

Vivox's Review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Toby Hooper's film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is considered to be one of the best horror movies in history. Basing his film off of the real life story of Ed Gein, the movie followed the story of a bunch of teenagers as they come face to face with a hillbilly family and Leatherface, a man who wears peoples skin! The film was so popular, that it was remade a few years ago with hotty Jessica Biel (which probably everybody already knew). But I was surprised to learn that their was a game based upon the original movie for the Atari 2600!

Story: All right, this game takes the films movie and simplifies it severely: you are Leatherface and you walk around with a chainsaw and kill random, innocent women with your chainsaw. Pretty messed up. I mean, you've probably killed tons of innocent people in the Grand Theft Auto games, but for some reason I found this game pretty disturbing in a strange way. I mean, you play as a freakin' mass murderer! I have nothing against violent games, but for some reason I just thought the prospect of playing a murderer and killing innocent people was just kind of sick. But, whatever floats your boat. The story for the game (randomly walking along and killing people) is pretty original, I'll give it that. You probably couldn't get away with a game like this nowadays, what with getting in severe trouble and all. The Story gets a 7 out of 10.

Gameplay: Very simple: you walk around a scrolling screen, avoiding things like wheelchairs so you can hurry up and kill innocent people before the gas in your chainsaw runs out. Every five kills equals more chainsaw fuel and more points. The game is very simple, as you just keep doing the same thing over, and over, and over, 'cuz there ain't no ending in this baby! The Gameplay gets a 6 out of 10.

Graphics: This game is older than me. That means that I cannot fairly or accurately rate these graphics in a fair manner. So, in the interest of "fairness" the graphics will get a score right in the middle. I mean, you can tell what everything is, so they can't be that bad, right? Right? The Graphics get a 5 out of 10.

Music\Sound: Again, this is one of those subjects where you can't fairly rate it. The Atari 2600 Halloween game had pretty good sound. This game doesn't have much sound at all. There is a opening tune the title screen... but not much else. But I do want to be fair, so the Music\Sound get a score that is right in the middle. The Music\Sound get a 5 out of 10.

Replayability: Depends on how much you like the game. If you want to beat your high score and think the game is "great fun", then you can probably go to town with this game. But if you like games that you can beat, you'll probably pass it over. The Reaplayabiliy gets a 6 out of 10.

Buy, or Download?: Just buy the game. If you like the movies, you'll probably find the game interesting. If you just like Atari games (there is a huge community online for people who do) you'll probably like this game. Downloading it is illegal, so downloading it is not recommened, unless you have a copy of the original game.

As much as I like the films (I am a horror movie junkie, after all), this game is mediocre at best. I mean it is fun, but the fun won't last for long.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/05