Friday the 13th Should Get a Remake

Well, blah. I had something kind of neat planned for yesterday, but then this happened, among various other permutations of the same and more elsewhere. So I guess I’ll just hold on to it for now.

Anyway, the clock has struck Friday, and it is now the 13th. As such, it seems only fitting to talk about that classic of horror movie classics, House of the Dead by Uwe Boll!

Right, as though you couldn’t tell where this was going from the title banner.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good time to say that I have turned to the dark side, and I believe that Friday the 13th is in need of a remake. No, not the motion picture (again, title banner), but the video game published in 1989 by LJN.

It’s been forever since I last played it, and though it is regarded widely as not being a very good game, it was The LJN Defender’s analysis of the title on the last Friday the 13th of this year that made me reconsider:

Like a lot of Nintendo Entertainment System games back in the day, some things are a bit obtuse, or have a certain trick to them that you have to learn, such as kneeling before throwing rocks to get the most effectiveness out of them. The maligned map is another thing I think gets too much flack, and could probably benefit from a remake — I always understood what was going on, as it acts a bit more like a real map than a video game map, but I can see where people might get thrown off by that.

Really, it seems to have a pretty solid core of ideas that might not have been executed in the best way possible — perhaps even being a little ahead of its time. I’d love to see someone — WayForward comes to mind — take up the challenge and remake this game, keeping true to the foundation of what it brings to the table, but fine-tuning and polishing other elements to go down easier. They should also keep Jason’s semi-classic turquoise and purple color scheme, of course (man, I’d kill love to have that figure).

Granted, this is probably not going to be a popular opinion, even with The LJN Defender backing me up. Understandable, as I’m admittedly not a dyed-in-the-wool (or should that be “died-in-the-woods”?) Friday the 13th fan, most of my exposure to the series having come from The Cinema Snob and a few odd comic books. Still, for the more devout of the cult of Jason Voorhees, there is another game coming to fruition:

It just reached its Kickstarter goal with about 13 hours to go (as of the time of this posting).

So maybe that would be more to others’ liking… though there’s nothing saying we can’t have it both ways.

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

David Oxford

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.