The slashing will continue until morale improves!
After what seems like years of waiting it is finally here! Made by Illfonics, Friday the 13th The Game is an asymmetrical third-person survival game. You can try and survive as a camper (AKA victims) or cause pandemonium and rip everyone apart as the man himself, Jason Vorhees. The developer got the majority of its funds from Kickstarter and had the backing of original F13th director Sean S. Cunningham (and horror icons like Cain Hodder and Tom Savini). What can I say? Most big time horror fans couldn’t wait to get their hands on this.
GRAPHICS: 1/2
How does it look? Pretty damn good! I initially thought that this was going to look much better, but they were just okay. I was disappointed in the in game characters reaction faces. They just seemed very cartoon-like. Sometimes you get caught in a weird camera angle or a killing scene and start seeing some clipping and glitching. But overall the permformance is quite smooth. Plus, the Jason skins look pretty ‘on-point’ for the most part.
STORY: 0/2*
So during development we (the consumers) were told that there would be a some single player campaign. Now that game is out, there’s only multiplayer… for now. There isn’t really any story to the actual game. It relies more on the nostalgia of the movie series, and that’s not a bad thing. I know for me, being able to stalk and murder someone as Jason was the selling point. I have Dead by Daylight and even with the Halloween DLC being so awesome… JASON IS THE MAN! Sorry Mr. Carpenter, I still love you though. But developers say we will be getting some single player stuff so with hope, we wait.
AUDIO: 2/2
No complaints here! From the screaming or screeching of the victims, the hacking and slashing sounds during the kills to the music and the way it’s used is just absolutely perfect. That signature Jason ‘leitmotif’ sound is used when Jason is close to you and it just happens so abruptly you almost forget you’re in a game and freak out that Jason is right behind you! The “terror” music is also used not just for sounds but also as a notification that someone in your group is being attacked. For me at least hearing those things put me on edge, making it easy to get lost in the game.
GAMEPLAY: 1/2
So this game is actually quite easy to pick up and play! Pretty standard controller layout is shown during loading screens (which can take some time). Some of the game mechanics like Jason’s “shift” ability can be kinda hard to control around obstacles. I mentioned before some of the camera angles are really rough especially when in the cabins. The biggest flaw was trying to play this when it was released for consoles and NOT GETTING TO PLAY! I would like to lower the score for that, but since its release the devs have been working hard to fix this issue. They even released some free skins as a thank you for the patience of their customers. Classy move guys!
FUN: 2/2
Despite the bugs and server problems this game is just so awesome to play. Maybe I’m just a fan boy of the subject matter [edtior’s note: he is], but getting to murder as Jason is breathtaking. I found myself getting so excited and giggling like a schoolgirl when I finally grabbed that damn teenager and ripped their head off! Even when you are one of the victims getting killed is just too much fun. The music gave great atmosphere and I was just engulfed when playing. Once I got onto a good server with awesome people I was able to play game after game, and these aren’t the shortest game sessions. They are short sessions if the randomly selected Jason is bad at it.
So many people have been waiting for this game and I have to say yes it delivers! It’s not a perfect game by any means. Friday the 13th is buggy and has server problems but it’s all worth it once you get that first kill. The gamer in me loves it for being a fun and sometimes frustrating game but the horror fan in me has the hugest boner for it!
SCORE: 6/10