Happy Friday the 13th, everyone, at least by the time I’m writing this article. What more can I do than to play a video game based on the iconic slasher series of the same name. And now that it has a physical copy available on the Switch, I finally have the chance to try it out.
In the game, you play as either series antagonist Jason Voorhees or those horny camp counselors. As Jason, your objective is to kill every last one of them, and he’s equipped with glory kills and 4 different abilities to do the job. As a counselor, you’re goal is to survive by either escaping from Camp Crystal Lake, fighting back and kill Jason, or waiting until 20 minutes are up. There are three ways to escape, either by car, by boat, or by police forces. But getting to either of them is no easy task, as you need to collect certain key items to fix both your escape vehicle of choice and the phone line. Let’s not forget that you have to do all of this without being spotted by Jason. You can hide by going inside a closet or under a bed, but Jason will eventually find you with his sensibility power, which allows him to see where the surviving players are at.
The game is said to run on Unreal Engine 4, but having to have played it myself, I have a hard time believing this to be true. When I think of Unreal Engine 4, I think of hyper advanced lighting effects to make the character models more photorealistic than it looks, and the graphics here look on par with PS3 and 360 games in comparison. There’s also a couple of bugs and glitches I found on my playthrough, though none of them were game-breaking (they’re only textural bugs). The number of modes is as barebones as Rocket League, as you only have the main game and character customizations, where you can not only change your counselor’s outfits but also Jason’s appearance based on the movies (each with their unique abilities and weaknesses). Lastly, there’s no motion controls on the Switch version, so good luck trying to land an accurate hit whoever you play as.
Overall, I only recommend playing Friday the 13th through short bursts. At least with Rocket League, you get to play in different stadiums with their own format. Here, it’s the same map and layout, and you get spawned to a different area of it each game, whether it’s Jason or a counselor. I really wasn’t expecting much from this movie licensed game, but it’s at least miles better than the awful NES game by LJN, which is also in this game as a alternate skin for Jason (complete with 8-bit music). Now if you’ll excuse me as I continue play this for the rest of the day before getting back to Three Houses.
VG Editorials 