Next up in the Virtua Month of Marz SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIES!!! We'll be delving into a classic video game for both video game and horror fans. Friday the 13th stands as one of my favorite movie horror slasher series of all time. While this game is not based on the first Friday the 13th movie, it's based on Jason. So, you're playing as multiple camp counselors walking around Camp Crystal Lake and looking in the cabins for the killer in the hoekey mask.
This game is a little ahead of its time in some regards. When you enter the cabins, it goes into a first person 3D perspective that you wouldn't expect from a Nintendo Entertainment System. These are the places you meet Jason first. You meet him in a third person perspective in the battle against him and it's really not all that difficult to kill him. That's not to say you couldn't have a bad run, but he's fairly easy to read. You can also run into him on the road around Camp Crystal Lake and fight him in more of a fighting game style perspective.
Remember to get the knife. The rock and every other weapon in this game pales in comparison to the straight shooting knife. It kills Jason in a hurry and keeps you alive through a lot of conflicts. The battle system in this game isn't all that terrible. It's actually fairly dynamic and are the best parts of this game in general.
The problem is that the rest of the game is rather boring, and very slow. Walking around the camp to find Jason is a dismal experience and it grows very tiresome because you need to defeat him multiple times. If they did a more linear experience, rather than running around a camp trying to search for some killer, this could have been a very effective horror game.
It is kind of effective, mostly because when you're in the 3D parts of the game in the cabin, the soundtrack and the slow movement speed can create a very creepy environment. Jason can pop out of nowhere and scare the skin off of you. That is his best advantage. If he jumpscares you well enough, you may become a little frantic and lose your concentration.
While this game is not very good, it did bring about quite a few awesome memes, both from its goofy nature of being a horror game for kids in the 80's, but also from the reviews including but not limited to the Angry Video Game Nerd, a Youtube series by James Rolfe. That was actually my introduction to AVGN video game reviews and I have been watching him ever since. The quotes from the game are iconic now, but so is Jason's silly color scheme with the blue and purple combination from the NES system's limited pallet. It can be a very creepy experience, but it can also be a big fat bore. Just don't tell Jason I said any of these things in the Virtua Month of Neptune SPOOO---AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!
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