Name: Friday the 13th
Platform: NES
Year Released: 1986

It starts innocently enough. You sit down with a few friends, crack open some Doritos, grab a frosty beer from the fridge, and start watching all 11 Friday the 13th movies in a row. It's Halloween, what else are you doing? Of course, one of your friends (you know the type: loud, inebriated, cocky) decides you need to break out your ancient NES for some old school gaming. Just to shut him up, you agree, and hook up the RF adapter, and get the system primed for play. Spiteful that your drunk friend is trying to take over your movie marathon, you hand him the only game nobody wants to play: Friday the 13th.

Camp Crystal Lake has been home to some of the worst tragedies ever recorded in the history of man. It's also home to one of the greatest homicidal maniacs of the last 25 years, Jason Vorhees. The game starts innocently enough, putting you in the role of one of six counselors at the newly re-opened camp. Kids are disappearing at an alarming rate, and it's up to you and your co-ed buddies to figure out just what's going on. You've all heard the legend of Jason, but none of you believe it until it's too late.

Friday the 13th starts you out on a search and rescue mission. As you make your way around the campgrounds inspecting cabins in hopes of finding the missing campers, you'll run across numerous zombies out for your brains. I'm very familiar with the films in the franchise, and I can't remember anytime zombies were involved, but for the sake of this game, I'll allow it. There's a forest, and a cave, and of course the Crystal Lake, but don't be fooled into thinking there's a lot of variation in the design. There's either bunkhouses behind you, or trees. Oh, and the zombies.

After exploring the area for a while, an alert sound will go off, and a countdown begins. You have about a minute to make it to the blinking house on the map to save some of the kids, and fight of Jason. I should tell you, in the films, Jason is just virtually unstoppable. Guns, vaccuums in space, spears, you name it, it can't stop him for more than a few minutes. Whatever made the developers of this game think you'd be able to defend yourself against Jason with nothing more than a rock, or if you're lucky enough to find one, a knife, is beyond me. We're talking about Jason Vorhees, here. The guy didn't make it through the 11 movies by being a pussy.

Needless to say, you're going to run out of camp counselors pretty damn fast. While the first time you fight Jason he's only using his two-punch combo, later incarnations weild weapons. If you were lucky enough to make it this far, consider yourself a champion of life. Why you continued to search for those stupid kids (who probably deserve to die anyway) after surviving one encounter with the fabled killer is something you'll be asking yourself constantly. You should've just run. Some people dare to consider this game frustrating. They of course don't realize what an accurate representation of what it would really be like trying to survive a night at Camp Crystal Lake the game is.

This game is hands down the greatest Friday the 13th game ever made, and I would love for there to be an update on this game to coincide with the forthcoming remake (due in February. On the 13th no less). I know I'm in the minority here, but I still think this is one of the most fun games to play, if only for the sheer joy it gives me to see Jason kill everyone who tried to take him on.

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