Converted for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum in 1986; credits unknown.
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
Horror is one of my favourite genres in everything, particularly games, if made well enough. Proof of people being able to write successful horror games came surprisingly early on - sometimes in the form of text adventures such as Dracula (1986) and Jack the Ripper (1987) from CRL, and Temple of Terror (1987) from US Gold; and less often in the form of action/arcade games such as Forbidden Forest (1983) and its sequel from Cosmi, Chiller (1986) from Exidy and Ant Attack (1984) and its sequel from Quicksilva. However, when it came to translating a horror movie into a video/computer game form, the results were more often less desirable. Since it's October now, I thought I might do a few horror-based game comparisons, and make it more fun by focusing first on some bad horror games.
Call it a guilty pleasure or whatever, but Domark's Friday the 13th has always been on my top 10 list of favourite games to waste time on when you can't think of any properly good game. I will come to the reasons a bit later. I always thought the game was reviewed with a rather unfairly critical eye by a lot of the gaming press at the time, although some did think it at least above average (Your Commodore and C&VG gave it a 7/10 in 1986). Now, though, CPC Softs has an amazing 17.50 out of 20.00 rating (if that's what it is); Lemon64 has a surprisingly fair score of 6.6 from a total of 102 votes; and 48 World of Spectrum voters have given it a lowly 4.75. All I can say is, it sure divides people. But is it because of the game content or the version at hand?
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