A lot of people outright hate this game. They think it's too difficult, it's confusing, Jason wears purple, the music is repetitive. That's all sort of true, But I always had a great time with it.
Then Jason shows up and starts fucking ruining everyone. The idea of the game is simple: Kill Jason before he kills all of you. Of course, if you've seen the movies, you know that isn't really that simple after all.
On top of Jason, the camp is also suddenly crawling with zombies (the manual suggests that they are his past victims), wolves that are decidedly vicious and some crows are just being total dicks for seemingly no reason. God I hate video game birds.
There are 6 camp counselors who stand in the way of Jason's murderous spree, and they're all armed with rocks. Yeah, just rocks. Fortunately, by running around the camp, killing zombies, you start to find some better weapons-- a knife, and eventually a machete will show up. You can also acquire a torch by lighting all of the fireplaces in the large cabins around the lake (there's 7, if I remember right). Through time and careful exploration, you can also come across a few machetes and axes hidden in the woods and cave.
Oh yeah, by the way, there's a cave. Pretty sure I never saw that in any of the movies. Who lives in the cave? Jason's mother's head. That is to say, Jason's mother's reanimated flying gigantic head. She is literally a tougher enemy than Jason. I hadn't seen Friday the 13th Part 2 back when I first played this game, so I was pretty confused by her appearance here.
Actually, I have since seen the film, and I'm still confused about it.
The good news is, you have to purposefully seek her out. You can beat her once per in-game day. The first day gets you a weapon, either a machete or ax. On the second day, you get her sweater. On the third day, you get a pitchfork, which for some reason is Jason's most feared weapon. I guess nobody ever tried it on him in the movies.
As I mentioned, the game takes place over 3 days. Each time you kill Jason, a new day starts. He's back and he's faster than previous (this runs inverse to the movies, where he continuously got slower).
So yeah, I was a huge Friday the 13th fan, and I played the hell out of this game as a kid. I must have beaten it dozens of times. I might have even killed Jason more times than he came back to life in the movies. I had the whole play-through down to a science. Use one teen to run around lighting all the fireplaces, getting the torch and flashlight. Then I'd send another one out to get the key and hit up the woods for the weapons hidden there, and pick up a lot of vitamins along the way. Meanwhile, I'd be making sure to fight Jason using characters armed only with rocks on the first day, just so I would have more time before advancing and I could get everyone properly armed before Jason got tougher.
I'd also have to have one counselor stationed near the lake to go protect the children every time that Jason attacked them.
Oh, I didn't mention that, did I? When he's not attacking your counselors, Jason goes to the cabins by the lake and brutally murders children until a counselor comes out to fight him off. He didn't even do that shit in the movies. Eleven movies, not one dead child (unless you count Jason). You have a limited time to scurry out there. If you don't make it in time, he kills 5 kids and leaves. Even if you get there before the time is up, he'll usually have managed to hack his way through a few. It's virtually impossible to get through the game with all 15 children still alive. I've never done it. The games attitude about this is "Hey no big deal, there's still a couple. One kid's as good as another, right?"
The Angry Video Game Nerd did a really fun review of the game a couple years back. You can see it here. He hates it, of course, but I don't begrudge anyone that.
No official Friday the 13th game has come out since, despite the series rolling in money. Even now, with so many video games targeted toward adults, there has not been a proper Jason video game.
A while back, a forum user on the old Fridaythe13thfilms.com forums released a romhack of the game titled Friday the 13th v1.3. It's pretty much just a graphical update, putting Jason in more appropriate attire rather than his purple jump suit. It also changes the names of all the counselors to names of characters in the films. I scoured the internet for it before making this post, and unfortunately I cannot find the original author-- or anything about it really. I've included a download link to it right here. If anyone out there knows any more information about this romhack or the name/contact of the author, please let me know so I can give him credit. It's pretty good work.
It's usually the version I choose to play now, but I'll always have my actual copy on hand.
I always liked this game, but it does so much to slow you down. Like trying to save your buddies, it's a good idea, but you're CONSTANTLY going back to save them! I NEVER EVEN MADE IT TO THE CAVE! The map system sucked, but that's just because the directions are reversed and once you figure that out it's pretty simple to use. The AVGN did a really good job of pointing out the flaws with the game there's just so many. Not to say it's bad, but it could've been REALLY GOOD! just needed some more beta testing.
ReplyDeleteAlso of course one child is as good as another they all had no names and no faces!