HI everyone! Chrispy99 here and back with another review for you! Today I have Friday the 13th the videogame. This review is going to be based on my personal experience with the game and my opinion on the concept of buying into beta games such as PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds and Dead by Daylight. Once again, this is my personal review and I won’t be focusing too much on the technical details and more so looking at it for an average consumer’s perspective. Here we go!
Friday the 13th is a team survival game where multiple players work together against a single player who plays as a character who is overpowered compared to the rest of the players. In this case, the setting emulates the classic scenes and scenarios from the Friday the 13th movie series where campers attempt to escape or survive against Jason Voorhees, the iconic horror villain. Based on the concept alone, the game seems very limiting in terms of expanding game mechanics and feels like it would get repetitive if the single game mode is the only game mode available. However, developers seem to be aware of this limiting factor and have attempted to really focus on the variety of play styles and collectibles within that single mode.
The gameplay feels very clunky playing both from Jason’s and a camper’s perspective. Both characters move fairly slow (I assume as an attempt to heighten the horror tension) with campers having slow replenishing stamina bars that are affected if they are jogging or sprinting. However, this mechanic is fairly thought out since Jason is unable to sprint allowing campers to have the ability to escape a temporary engagement with the villain. Campers are also given a variety of tools at their disposal to delay Jason as they attempt to either escape or fight Jason. Firecrackers, bats, and shotguns are available as well as locks and radios to stun, deter, and distract him. All maps have various methods of escaping including via car, via boat, or by assistance from the local authorities. Jason makes up for it by having probably the most diverse set of abilities at his disposal. Teleportation across the map, fast movement shifting, and nearby sound recognition are just some of abilities that are available as Jason. It may seem overpowered if you are playing as a camper in the game for the first time but that is the intention of it. The game type centers around either an implied agreement on teamwork or a free for all survival. There are moments where people get lucky and manage to get all the parts needed to escape but most of the time, cooperation and communication is needed to traverse the map and find all the pieces. One thing significant to note which may or may not have been an oversight for developers is the focus on saving other teammates. A game where random players work together to escape a horror scenario really does not allow players to save each other mainly due to the clunky interactions between traps, objects, and environments. If a camper gets trapped against Jason, the timing for other campers to engage and stop him is small and many players tend to opt out and just leave that trapped person for dead.
The game initially came out as an early access release for people who committed to buying the concept. This is where many gamers such as I have such a conflict with this pitch and sell design. Many indie titles and smaller game companies have turn to crowd funding to assist with game development. I would be fine with this if companies kept their promises on releasing their games but there have been many crowd funded products that have fallen through with no form of compensation. With early access, gamers will get the game with major bugs and technical glitches. It can be deceiving for a casual gamer (mainly if they do not understand the full concept of beta/alpha access and something still in development) and expect the game to be fully functional as soon as they start playing. Limited features and problems can end up promoting games in bad marketing resulting in the game’s demise. Furthermore, people do understand the concepts of early access and paid for it (sometimes as high as a full priced game) will watch the downfall of a game due to some inexperienced gamers not fully comprehending the concept of game development.
Coming back to Friday the 13th, the game is definitely rough around the edges. But with the depth of the character traits and variety of customization, the game has potential to be a successful hit. The IP of Friday the 13th would bring the familiarity to fans both new and old to the franchise and also revamp a cult classic movie franchise to a new audience. Personally, I have already bought the game since friends have already invested into the concept so I am content with buying it just to play with friends (I’m so lonely T.T). However, with its use of early access to the public and limited (and sometimes repetitive) content, it will be on the developers to really sell the contents of the game and promote its strongest features. I would only recommend to buy the game when all the bugs have been taken care of and it is on official release either on console or on PC where consumers have the ability to refund it if it is not their cup of tea.
That’s it for this post. Let me know what you think about Friday the 13th? Are you someone who commits to a lot of pre order and early access content? Have you had any issues with it? I would love to continue the conversation in the comments. Let me here you guys down there! Thanks for reading Steemit!!!!
All images have been taken from Google images