How Friday the 13th: The Game Is Simultaneously Toxic & Fun

11/25/2017

Written by DicloniusGames

Horror games have stepped things up over the last few years. First there was the success of Alien Isolation, proving that a good Alien game exists, and now another horror franchise is given the nod of success. Friday the 13th is the series in question, and the game remains popular amongst the streaming community of both Twitch and YouTube.

Even with its’ successes, Friday the 13th still has a major flaw…an extremely (situational) toxic community. There’s no doubt the game is fun on either side of play, as it’s exciting to be both the hockey-masked psycho and one of the 12 possible camp counselors doing anything to escape and survive Jason Voorhees’ terror. There are plenty of things that make the game special. At the same time, there are a few things that hold the game back from being an awesome multiplayer-only experience one never forgets.

Fun: no two matches are ever the same

Unlike Call of Duty, Destiny 2, or Battlefield 1, Friday the 13th is multiplayer only. While this can be a hindrance, as I will describe later, no two matches are ever the same. Yes, you can set a preference of which Jason you’d like to play as and which counselor you like to use (For me, it’s A.J. Mason and Part 3 Jason), you have the same chance to be a counselor or Jason every match.

With over 10 counselors in the game (additional counselors were provided by the latest update), every counselor has strengths and weaknesses players use to escape the camp in numerous ways, hold out through the night and avoid Jason as much as possible, or attempt to take on the hockey mask wearing stalker.

Escaping isn’t as difficult as taking Jason on directly, as killing Jason requires teamwork and teammates willing to work with you as there are key steps involved in the process. Obviously, surviving the night and escaping can be done lone wolf if you choose to. Even spawning in as Tommy Jarvis allows some depth, as Tommy is overpowered with perfect stats in every category and should be used as a support character to help the other counselors.

The various Jason models in the game also provide depth as they, too offer different strengths and weaknesses. For example, one variant may have stronger weapon damage and grip strength but can’t run. Another may be able to run and start with more efficient throwing knives and more traps, but may be weaker to stuns. How you play as Jason is ultimately up to you, but every Jason has four main skills: stalk, sense, morph, and shift and can find throwing knives around the camp to weaken, or even kill, counselors easier.

Toxic: online connectivity issues.

With being a multiplayer-only game, Friday the 13th suffers from drawbacks. The major one being online connectivity. While connection issues run rampant in online games, it can become serious when you spend up to possibly 10 minutes or more trying to get into or find a match and then instantly either get host kicked or timed out.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either been put into a lobby by myself and had to back out or having a good match as Jason and getting kills, only to either be timed out or host kicked because the host got butt hurt. Even as a counselor, when whoever the host is dies first, they quit, thus kicking everyone out of the game. It’s frustrating.

Fun: lobbies with great players.

9 times out of 10, you’ll get into lobbies with people who know what they’re doing and want to enjoy the game. Having great players in a match not only makes the match enjoyable for you, but it also makes the game that much more enjoyable for them, thus potentially leading them to tell their friends to get this game and join in on the fun.

Players who know the game and possess legitimate skill, whether you’re a counselor or Jason, provide the depth the game has while also potentially promoting the game to other gamers that are looking for something different from Call of Duty or Battlefield.

The feel of hunting skilled counselors as Jason (or being hunted by a skilled Jason) heightens your concentration and engages you in the game more as you try to find a way to escape, survive, or kill.

Toxic: trolling.

I understand trolling exists in every online video game, I really do. However, when trolling in a game takes away from the overall experience and makes a game unenjoyable for the lobby, that’s when trolling goes too far.

For example, kids trying to talk smack and have no idea how to play a game that they have no business playing in the first place. Trapping people in corners in the cabins and intentionally alerting Jason to your presence just to get you both killed is a major annoyance. What also gets me is people who intentionally smack talk you because you’re not good at a game, and thus think they have the right to troll you. For example, the first time I got to play a match as Jason, I only got one kill because I had no idea how to use his skills and strengths at the time and certain people in the lobby felt they could insult me for it.

I get that trolling is never going away in games like this, but to make it less of an issue, create private matches with friends only you can trust on your console of choice/ PC. Doing so can make games like these enjoyable again.

Thanks for reading! For more on Friday the 13th, check out DaLoNeGunMeN’s review of the game here.

Comments