Friday the 13th: The Game Review – An Exceptional Nightmare

No one can deny growing up Friday the 13th was one of the scariest villains around aside from Freddy Kruger, Chucky, the clown in Stephen King’s It, Michael Myers; okay there were a lot of reasons to sleep with the lights on. Most of the characters also had a game that supported its level of horror as far back as the early NES.

Illfonic has decided to pull Jason back out of the shadows for what should be a gruesome experience for all to enjoy as they die by the hands of a legend, unless you are the ax man. Each session consist of eight players to where at random seven will become camp counselors and one will be Jason Vorhees.

As a counselor you may need to either operate a car, boat or call the police to live another day. It’s quite complicated as you have to run inside multiple cabins and look for various items while trying to avoid Jason. In most sessions players ran around aimlessly, not working cohesively. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as players can technically finish a map on their own, leaving you to die.

In the 1/8th of a chance of becoming Jason, you’re in for a treat becoming the biggest threat to the camp. As Jason you can see through cabin walls, spawn ahead of campers and of course slay everyone before they get a chance to find freedom.

Killing off the teenagers is a pleasant treat as there are some of the most sickening ways imaginable. Most deaths, as well as teens and other versions of Jason are required to be unlocked as you earn points through each gaming session.

For the teenagers scavenging for the needed items to survive, they never appear in the locations, making the search more of a horrific adventure. Dying is never fun and how Illfonic sets the tone is perfect, playing Jason’s iconic theme as he draws closer for the kill. Even through death you have a slim chance to resurrect as one of the few to ever kill Jason, Tommy Jarvis.

In respects to the developer we allowed a few days after release to write our review as Friday the 13th was quite the disappointment as backers and gamers were unable to play, kicked out of sessions and servers, consistently lost their rankings and more.