Ah Friday The 13th, the excellent slasher series turned into a horrible game. Well to be honest, I don’t hate the game as much as others do, and I even find some joy in it. Its not a good game but it does have some good points. So why does it get hated so much?
The problem with Friday the 13th is two fold, one is that it can be confusing where to go. This may not seem like that big an issue given that many modern games have that issue, but this was a different level of confusing. The game lacked a basic way to track where you needed to go and unless you had a perfect memory, you were in trouble. The game constantly threw you for a loop, but this would not have been so bad if not for time limits and bad combat. The combat in the game is atrocious, even for the usual standards of cash in movie games. Moving and attacking was impossible due to needing to throw your weapon in an arch, and fighting Jason was much more difficult than it needed to be, due not to enemy difficulty but rather due to the controls being unresponsive. It seems like the designers thought that the player should feel helpless so made this part intentionally play much worse, but that’s just a guess.
But what did I find good about the game? Well for one, the music was actually pretty good as far as I am concerned. It wasn’t as good as a Nightmare on Elm Street, but still decent. I also just like the kooky nature of the game, where it seemed to revel in its nonsensical nature. I would almost say it was self aware, but not quite.
Friday the 13th was not a good game, but one could find a tiny bit of joy with it. Ironically enough, I feel that A Nightmare on Elm Street which also gets maligned, is actually a very good game, especially for the time. That being said though, it is a story for another time.