YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD
May 13, 2016 5:09 AM Subscribe
One of the most infamously bad NES licensed games ever released, Friday the 13th is known for its obtuseness and difficulty. Still, there's many who see an interesting design buried beneath Pack-In Software's incompetence, even inspiring an action figure based on its odd Jason Voorhees sprite, and it's for those people that YouTube filmmakers TripleZeroFilms created a 50-page, full-color, illustrated strategy guide (with its own trailer video!) for this unpolished gem in the extremely rough.
On the other hand, maybe you don't want to actually play the game- that's cool, it still sucks, and nobody will ever blame you. Instead watch somebody who's really good at it beat the game in 22 minutes.
On the other hand, maybe you don't want to actually play the game- that's cool, it still sucks, and nobody will ever blame you. Instead watch somebody who's really good at it beat the game in 22 minutes.
I remember renting this game as a kid from Blockbuster. I have no idea why I did because I was still at the age where Friday the 13th and similar movies still terrified me. I do remember the game being a confusing mess with little guidance on what exactly you needed to do to win (similar to the NES ghostbusters game). So I have vague memories of wandering around the screen with a growing sense of anxiety that Jason was going to pop out at any moment and periodically shutting the game off before it could happen. It's hard to recreate that same frisson just from a change in the music as an adult.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 5:48 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by C'est la D.C. at 5:48 AM on May 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Man, this fucking game. I didn't have an NES, but a friend did, and we rented it from Blockbuster, too, and couldn't make heads or tails of the goddamn thing.
That anybody cared enough -- or learned enough -- about this game to write up a 50-page strategy guide is as much testament to the power of human will as anything else.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:12 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
That anybody cared enough -- or learned enough -- about this game to write up a 50-page strategy guide is as much testament to the power of human will as anything else.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:12 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
I spent way too much of my childhood playing the Commodore 64 version.
posted by webmutant at 6:42 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by webmutant at 6:42 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
This game was just gut-wrenchingly awful. No amount of nostalgia-laden nonsense will ever change that.
posted by amcevil at 7:14 AM on May 13, 2016
posted by amcevil at 7:14 AM on May 13, 2016
Oh, man, yeah. The C64 version was impossible to understand or to win, but curiously fun to play.
posted by rikschell at 8:10 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 8:10 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Seems like as good a place as any to put this:
Today - Friday 13th
The next 7 months initials: J J A S O N
Holy shit. 🔪 💀
posted by mulligan at 8:51 AM on May 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
Today - Friday 13th
The next 7 months initials: J J A S O N
Holy shit. 🔪 💀
posted by mulligan at 8:51 AM on May 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
I can't believe I just read an entire strategy guide for a game I rage quit like 20 years ago. It is kind of cool to see that there's actually some logic to its gameplay, though.
posted by compybara at 10:27 AM on May 14, 2016
posted by compybara at 10:27 AM on May 14, 2016
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posted by museum of fire ants at 5:44 AM on May 13, 2016