I love Halloween. Everybody’s weird comes out during the season, there’s good candy everywhere not counting that wretched abomination known as candy corn, cool costumes, entertaining movies, and for some, great gaming. This blog will kind of play shortstop between the last two bases: movies and games.
Xbox Live Gold made Friday the 13th: the Game free this month. I have a friend I play Titanfall with almost everyday who not only loves the Friday the 13th movies, but has been trying to get me to buy the game for some time.
I haven’t seen any of the movies completely, only bits and pieces. Enough to know roughly the story. Jason died in a lake at a Summer camp, and returns from the lake occasionally to wreak Hell. The game is stuffed to the gills with references to the movies, according to my friend. Some of them even I understood. In the movies, Jason basically has superpowers. And these powers have made their way into the game in ways that make for good gameplay.
This is a multiplayer-only game, where one person plays as Jason, and the other eight players play as camp counselors. The goal for the counselors is to survive, for Jason to kill as many counselors as possible. It is possible to kill Jason, but for practical purposes it is essentially impossible. Much like in the movie. As you level up, you can unlock different counselors to play as, and upgrade your Jason. Certain counselors can do special things, and it takes two specific counselors to do very specific and difficult things to kill Jason. Your best bet as a counselor is to try and escape any way you can. There are several maps, and the game takes place in the 80s, so no cell phones. The maps have random item spawns, so there’s no way to know for sure your escape route going in. You may need gas for the boat or car, a battery for the car, a phone to call police to come and save you, or a couple other options depending on the map.
I am having great fun with this game. Jason has a terror radius, so if he is near you as a counselor you hear his trademark call and intense music. My first play as a counselor I got trapped like a rat by Jason pretty much by my own hand. I heard his call, and hid in a nearby one room cabin. I barred the door, which sealed my fate. Jason can see if a door has been locked, and almost as soon as I bolted the door he began beating it down. He got a couple good hits in on me before I slunk past him and tried to run. I ended up cornering myself again and got killed by Jason.
My first Jason experience I managed to get a couple good kills. I would have gotten a few more if I were quicker with using my powers. One kill, I was chasing a counselor down and he made the gravest mistake. He tried to out-swim me. Jason is incredibly powerful in water. I teleported to the river from the land directly under the counselor and drug them down to the depths.
(photo credit: gearnuke.com)
HereticDerek 