Friday the 13th - Nintendo Style - By Danny Runion

Articles & Profiles: Friday the 13th - Nintendo Style - By Danny Runion
Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 @ 00:00:00 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

The Atari 2600 version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre has you control Leatherface trying to mow down those pesky dirty hippies who have invaded your property. Halloween had you as Jamie Lee Curtis being chased by the Shatner-mask clad Michael Meyers. Are you ready to battle the 8-bit gory, I mean glory of Jason Vorhees?

This game is nowhere in the annals of say Splatterhouse when it comes to gore. This is a surprisingly tame game. It wouldn't be expected to have anything like the infamous Kevin Bacon throat arrow or any mid nookie impalings. The Castlevania games have more horrific elements than Friday the 13th. Nintendo was able to learn from some of the mistakes of Atari that led to Custer's Revenge. Nintendo was able to control the licensing of games to prevent adult games unlike the Atari 2600.

Friday the 13th is one of the more infamous 8-bit Nintendo games. A certain age group has almost universally heard of it. The biggest shame is that the game isn't anywhere as bad as some of the other LJN games. LJN Games had quite a list of bad games like Back to the Future, Jaws, Wolverine, and X-Men.

It's a pretty typical summer at Crystal Lake. There's a group of happy children staying in the Camp. You and your six Camp Counselor friends are watching over the kids while enjoying the lake and the wilderness. The days are bright and sunny. The nights are cool and clear. And Jason is on a rampage.

It's up to you to stop him, but it's not going to be easy. You must first fight your way through forests filled with man-eating wolves, caves covered with blood sucking bats and hordes of mindless zombies everywhere you turn. You must also help any friend who is in danger, or else you can just kiss them goodbye. And hiding in a cabin or staying adrift in a canoe won't keep you safe - Jason will find you anywhere. The only way to survive this summer is to challenge Jason face to face, and destroy him.

The counselors wander around to a lot of cabins and light the fireplaces. The cabin walls better look pretty good to you because after a while you'll be circling around those cabins unable to find the door.

Apparently, this camp has plenty of weapons scattered over the grounds. Knives, torches, machetes, and pitchforks can do a lot of damage. If you can find his mother's sweater, he won't attack you. It is nice to see they took some ideas from several of the Friday the 13th movies. Too bad, you can't get a straight razor to shave yourself bald to imitate Corey Feldman.

Numerous zombies crawl out of the ground seeking to dismember a batch of annoying teenagers. A number of zombies leap from the lake to imitate their undead master: Jason.
Wolves, vultures, and bats are under the thrall of Jason. Eventually, Jason's mother's head flies around to attack you. Yes, a severed head will try to kill you. If the counselors
can keep their wits long enough to gather good enough weapons they may be able to face down the hockey masked clad lunatic.

Keeping healthy isn't the only purpose. You must also protect the kids at the camp, too. The health power-ups are jars of vitamins scattered across the camp. The game ends if all the counselors are killed or if all the kids are. While a counselor is roaming around Crystal Lake, the others counselors are defenseless and easy pickings for a certain super strong maniac. Each of the counselors needs to be checked on every so often to insure their survival. Switching counselors also helps to save on the endless amount of walking from one side of the forest to the other.

Apparently, the only wholesome teenage camp counselors in the world are going to get rid of Jason once and for all. It will take 3 days to rid the camp of Jason. You must kill him 3 times. Each time, he gets even stronger and harder to kill. While the ending isn't like the infamous Texas Chainsaw Massacre game with Leatherface getting his butt kicked by some pesky teenagers, the Friday the 13th ending is nearly as anti-climactic with the patent pending twist ending included.

Well, some consider this to be an excellent game. However, others hold a slightly higher opinion of it than the E.T. game for the Atari 2600. Friday the 13th may not have been tied back by the today's video game ratings. 8-bit graphics aren't exactly known for hardcore gore graphics or even horror graphics for that matter. The Nintendo is capable of graphics that would at least be several gruesome degrees beyond most of its competition from the 80s. By making the game less gruesome, it is sure to have kept down on any negative publicity. It does seem if going to cash in on the background of Friday the 13th, it should at least have the guts to keep up the violence.