Friday the 13th Review.
Jason Voorhees is one of the most recognisable movie villains of all time; even if you haven't seen the movies you know the unmistakable hockey mask. Up until now, Jason has only appeared in two games, one game on the NES which has gained notoriety on the internet for being rather bad. The other appearance was as a guest fighter in the somewhat recent Mortal Kombat X. Rumors then began circling the internet about a possible Friday the 13th game, and as you'd imagine, fans got excited myself included. A Kickstarter was launched by Gun Media asking for $700,000; over $820,000 was raised and after quite a long wait, the game was released worldwide on May 26. Is this game a bloody good time, or should it have stayed at the bottom of Crystal Lake?
Friday the 13th The Game is an 7-vs-1 asymmetrical multiplayer game somewhat similar to games like Evolve, but don't let that comparison put you off straight away. 7 people play as various camp counselors, each of which have different stats; for example while one counselor may be good at repairing things and being stealthy, another will have great stamina and be able to run for longer periods of time. As you level up you unlock more counselors so you can pick and choose your ideal build, you can also purchase perks to apply to any counselor, however you have no control over what these perks might be, you spend your currency (CP) to 'roll for a new perk'. Once the perk has been created, there is one main bonus, and then a plus and negative associated with it. For example, you might roll a perk that has you start each match with firecrackers, the plus effect being an 15% increased stun radius while the negative effect being you take 10% more damage, these percentage numbers are randomly assigned so you may be lucky enough to get a perk with literally no drawbacks.
There are multiple ways to win the match while playing as a counselor; call the police and escape when they arrive, fix one of two cars and drive away, fix a boat and escape over the lake or just try to outlast the match timer. You can also try to kill Jason but this requires a lot of team work and patience, however what is good about this particular method is that it is fairly faithful to the movies, especially parts 2 and 4. While you are waiting to escape there are several ways you can protect yourself from Jason, you can find melee weapons like axes, wrenches, machetes and all sorts of other blunt objects. There are also bear traps you can lay down and hope Jason walks into them, stunning him for a short while as you move elsewhere. Firecrackers and flare guns are some of the best ways to stun/disorientate Jason however, so it's always worth picking these up if you find them. Of course if you find yourself without weapons or traps, you can always just hide. There are plenty of hiding spots around the camps, whether it's under beds or inside wardrobes; just be mindful that if Jason finds you in a hiding spot, it's instant death.
That's essentially the basics of how counselors work, now its time to talk Jason. Undoubtedly playing as Jason is a lot more fun as, the win condition for playing as Jason is simple; just kill everybody. Whether that means throwing knives at them until they drop or literally punching their head off. At the beginning of each match Jason starts in his shack (introduced in the movies in part 2) looking at his mothers decapitated head, you then hear her tell him to go and kill everyone. While Jason is obviously much stronger than any other player, he isn't as fast as them. Most of the time counselors will be able to outrun him without issue unless they've been badly injured. There are ways around this as Jason gradually gains access to his 4 main abilities; Sense, Morph, Shift and Stalk. Sense lets Jason see other players if they are in a nearby vicinity by making them red. Morph allows you to teleport around the map, however this ability has a longer cooldown than other abilities. Shift lets you go first person and move at incredible speed for a very short time, this is useful for catching up with counselors. The Stalk ability lets you hide your presence from counselors allowing you to sneak up completely undetected. There is also a 5 skill, Rage, which won't activate until the match is halfway over. Rage is always active and enhances all other abilities and also lets Jason smash through doors and some walls instantly.
Like the counselors, there are several different forms of Jason to unlock and play as, all from different movies. While they don't exactly have stats like the counselors do, they all have 3 positive and negative attributes. For example Part 6 Jason starts with throwing knives, has a faster cooldown on Shift and has a longer lasting, more powerful Sense ability. However he has lower HP and defense, his top run speed is slower, and the Morph ability has a slower cooldown than normal. You can also use the CP currency to buy new kills to add to your chosen Jason; some of them are available for all Jasons to use like the head punch, while others are weapon specific. Using Part 6 Jason again, one of his signature kills is ramming a counselors head onto his spear, then slowly pulling the spear through. You'll have to play as Jason a few times before you find one that is right for you. And that brings us onto one of the games biggest problems; how often you actually play as Jason.
Because there are 8 players in a full match the game decides who is Jason at random, meaning you have about a 12.5% chance of playing as Jason which isn't really a lot. There is an option you can toggle which tells the game you prefer playing as either Jason or a counselor but in my experience, it didn't really seem to do anything. Another problem with the game is something quite crucial, the actual game experience and bugs found while playing. The first week the game was out it took me 10 minutes to find a game, then before the map loaded I got booted back to the main menu. This happened to me several times so I actually left the game for a week then returned to it. Luckily by this time a patch had been rolled out on all platforms to address various issues. I'm now getting into game lobbies in less than a minute, however, they're not always full and on more than one occasion, it's put me into an completely empty lobby with just me. When you do get into a game though, you might sometimes see a weapon or dead character floating off the floor but this is a rare occurrence. There is another bug which I haven't encountered myself but have seen in numerous videos of flying counselors, although I haven't heard about it as much since the patch came out.
Overall then, when everything works and you have a good lobby to play with, Friday the 13th can offer up a genuinely tense multiplayer experience with solid teamwork being the key to success, it can also be very fun to stalk other players as Jason, catch them unaware and push them head first into a fire. However, due to some sketchy animations/graphics, some long wait times to get into games and the fact that you're essentially paying for only one mode of play, it's a little hard to recommend buying this game at the full asking price of £30 on PC, £31 on PS4 and £32 for Xbox One.
I'm genuinely having a good time with the game, but it's definitely not everyone's idea of a good time. If you're really curious about it then you might be better off to wait for a sale. But if you're a big Friday the 13th fan like I am, chances are you already own it.
The PlayStation 4 version was used in this review and was acquired via a KickStarter backer reward for a cheaper than normal price.
