Producer: Domark
Retail Price: £8.95

If you've seen the film(s) then you'll already know the background to this game. For the benefit of those who missed them, here's a quick summary: people staying at a quiet holiday camp at Crystal Lake find their peace shattered when a young boy, Jason, accidentally drowns. His mother is so distraught at his death that she blames the other campers who did nothing to save him. One by one they are all murdered by Jason's Mum, until only one girl remains alive. She manages to kill Jason's psychopathic mother. All alone in the middle of the lake, the lone survivor waits while slowly the ghost of Jason rises from beneath its murky depths to take his revenge.

The game picks up where the film leaves off. You are now a camper at the ill-fated holiday camp and Jason, predictably enough, is still wreaking havoc. It is up to you to find a sanctuary which Jason won't enter and then persuade the other nine campers to join you there before Jason sends them on permanent holiday.

At the start of the game the computer selects one of the ten campers at Crystal Lake, and you take on his or her personality. The holidaymakers all have individual personalities and react differently during the game according to their particular strengths and weaknesses. Jason is a cowardly soul and always attacks the person whose panic level is the highest. Although it is up to you to save your friends from a grizzly death, you are by no means immune from the growing frenzy of your fellow sun worshippers.

The status of your character during the game is displayed at the foot of the screen. Three windows are used to indicate the levels of panic, strength and sanity you possess. Gradually, as panic levels rise, the hair on the head of a little portrait in the status area begins to stand on end. An ice hockey mask - as worn by Jason - fills in on another window to indicate the mental state of the character you are playing, the more mask the madder you are! Strength is displayed via a barbell which rises and falls, mirroring the physical status of the hero or heroine of the tale as it unfolds. Ten little icons on the right of the status area represent the campers at Crystal Lake, and as Jason eliminates them their figurines are replaced with tombstones.

Jason scampers around the playing area selecting weapons from his arsenal and eliminating campers one by one, starting with the most panic stricken holidaymaker. The ultimate aim of the game is to save all the campers from an untimely end by killing Jason before he kills them. Although he's a homicidal maniac, Jason is frightened of a cross which can be found on the campsite - collect this and deposit it in a room and Jason can't harm anyone who stays with the cross.

Once a sanctuary has been set up by depositing the cross in the barn, church or house, you must persuade your playmates to take refuge. Walking up to a camper, it's possible to shepherd him or her to the Sanctuary you have established. These people are on holiday, however, and despite the fact that there's a murderous loony at the resort they're determined to have fun! it is quite hard to get them to stay indoors, and they regularly wander off to go sunbathing or even swimming in Crystal Lake.

Jason looks just like a regular holidaymaker - he can only be spotted when he's killing someone on screen. As it is impossible to distinguish Jason from the other characters, you may try to lead him to the Sanctuary, in which case he scares the campers off, and you have to move the cross to another location, set up a new sanctuary and start herding the campers to safety once more.

To even the odds a little in the game, Jason is careless with his weapons, leaving them lying around. There are ten in all and you can pick up and use a weapon you come across. Only one death dealing implement can be carried at a time, though - there's no point in getting greedy. If you succeed in saving all the campers and kill Jason too, then he takes on the personality of your character and the game moves to the next level of difficulty where you assume the persona of another camper.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, O left, P right, M fire
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: adequate
Use of colour: not subtle
Graphics: rather crude, a bit grotty
Sound: the screaming the start is the best bit
Skill levels: 5

There was a lot of hype over this game, in fact the Newsfield office is still knee deep in headless rubber bats and plastic knives from Domark's visit a few months ago. After playing the game for a bit I feel that most of the hype was unjustified. Graphically, Friday the 13th hasn't very much to offer; the characters are blocky, undetailed and jerky as is the playing area. I also had a few problems accessing different screens so after a short time I had just about given up with this one, although I did go on to nearly complete the first level. The only thing that really appealed to me about this game is that you can murder your innocent friends and get millions of points by replacing the cross in the same room. I wouldn't recommend Friday the 13th though 'cos compelling it ain't.

The film is great, with Jason running around chopping people's heads off, but disappointment hits me once again. If Domark had tried, Friday 13th could have been a good game with such a scary storyline. On the inlay it says 'lock all doors' - but why? No spectacular graphics, and a few colours on buildings and more would be better. Sound is scarce as not much came to my attention throughout the game and qualities like this aren't going to keep your eyes on the screen or fingers on the keyboard for long. All I can suggest is close all windows and doors, hire a video and watch that instead.

For a while it seemed that Domark's standards were actually improving - Gladiator really wasn't that bad. Friday the 13th, however, sees the return of that old Domark bad taste and ineptness of production. I'm sorry, but it's just absolutely awful. What's really bad is that as with most naffo releases, the program's main selling period will be over by now and any punter who was going to be had by the excessive hype already has been. For anyone considering buying this release the fairest thing to say is have a look at it first as anyone who then thinks it's quite decent deserves the horrors that the game is replete with.

Domark
£8.95

A blood curdling scream rings from your Spectrum - then... silence! Not even the drip, drip, drip of blood. Just a message saying that owing to memory restrictions sound and music are missing from this version.

Still, that leaves the terrifying silence as you play with only the hum of the power supply, the wind rustling the trees, whistling through the empty house... the creak as you slide from your chair, not stiff as a board but bored stiff. Yes, undoubtedly Domark has created a computer nasty - though not in the sense it undoubtedly intended.

Anybody who has ever seen a Friday the 13th film will know the plot - mass slaughter with a variety of novel weapons. So do Domark allow you to play Jason and massacre the all-American brats in the summer camp? They do not! They expect you to save this bunch of butch bozos and highly strung wimps. This you do by running round the camp site and moving over them. They will then make for the place of sanctuary that you initially established with a cross - only Jason may come and scare them off so you'll need to round them up again. Ever felt like a sheep dog?

The reason this sort of movie never scared me was that I cared less than zilch about the victims. Well, if you thought the cardboard cut-out casts were bad, wait till you see their sprite equivalents. Am I really supposed to sympathise with a badly drawn silhouette in a landscape that looks worthy of Sinclair Basic's finest?

At heart there was the idea for a decent strategy- adventure here - Argus did it with Alien. Instead Domark's managed to create yet another program to match the ineptitude of A View To A Kill. You get the chance to use a chainsaw, knife or other weapon on Jason who is disguised as a friend - but by then the only thing you'll want to kill is the program cluttering up your ROM!

Perpetrator: Domark
Blood money: £9.95
Brains: 48K
Hatchets: Kempston, Sinclair

Sanctuary, sanctuary from this awful game. Jason Voorhees has come back to reclaim his hockey mash and has an arsenal of weapons which seem to have come from Domarks only good product on the market, Gladiator.

Jason has just done a Rambo leap out of the lake at Crystal Lake Holiday Camp when you arrive. In order to give him the death he deserves, and splatter fans await with hot, sticky, lolling tongues, you must herd your friends to a place of sanctuary, get one of the weapons Jason has kindly left around and kill him.

Before you get nine of the ten teenagers to safety you must create a sanctuary in the barn, church or library. Collect the Sanctuary Cross from the graveyard - at a holiday camp, you've gotta be kidding - and stand it in one of those buildings.

To warn the kids about Jason just pass over them. They will immediately go to the Sanctuary but - bites knuckles in terror - they will soon get bored and wander into the open where they are easy prey for the masked moron.

While all this is going on you should have picked the many weapons Jason has discarded - (he's so careless). They include a chain saw. arrows, tridents, machette, short sword and what looks like a rolling pin.

The problem with holding and using weapons is that you can only walk right, down and upwards. To walk left you move backwards continually flashing your weapon, which slows down movement. All Jason has to do is run to the left of the screen and you've lost him.

Not to worry, you can amass thousands of points by using your charms on corpses. You score points by brushing up against people and sending them back to Sanctuary. You can do the same thing with corpses which, like weapons, lie around in all sorts of strange places. Just settle yourself over a corpse and watch the points clock up.

Your ability to fight Jason is shown by two icons at the bottom of the screen. The first shows your face and, as you get more scared by Jason's activities, your hair begins to stand on end.

Your strength rating is shown as a bar bell which starts at the top of the window and journeys down as Jason claims more victims. When it gets to the bottom of the screen, or your hair is at its uppermost, your time is up and you get the axe - that's another of the ten weapons in the game.

Domark seems to have turned the appalling graphics into a feature of the game. All the characters look the same and when they turn to face you they all look as if they're wearing hockey masks.

Sometimes characters get caught up in the nooks and crannies of the scenery. They struggle on matchstick legs to get through walls, fences and even trees and hay bales.

The first signs of madness appear in a little window at the bottom of the screen in the form of a hockey mask.

Yes, you too can be as wacky as Jason - who, I've just discovered, plays a mean game of baseball with peoples heads. As the first part of the game progresses and the body count gets higher you slowly become insane and incapable of killing Jason. My suggestion, to stave off a visit to the funny farm, is to rip the tape from your data recorder and throw it in the nearest bin.

Before you do that, though, listen to the competition recorded after the game - it'll crack you up. There are ten horror sounds, all of which sound like the Domark programmers having their breakfast. I have some ideas as to what the sounds may be. There's the hiss of fried larynxs, the split of brussel heads and the gentle scraping of burnt fingers.

If that wasn't enough to have you in fits of vomit then suck on the blood capsules you get in the packaging. Domark says they contain red coloured sugar water. They certainly provide the highlight of a rather dim package and, unlike the game, they're frothy man.

Jason Gilbert

MACHINE: CBM 64, Spectrum, Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Domark
PRICE: £8.95

We're not trying to shock, protests Domark at suggestions of bad taste surrounding the advertising of Friday the 13th, just trying to get attention.

Really? Their advert, featuring an ice hockey mask in a pool of blood with a knife thrust through the eye socket, certainly works on both counts.

EMAP, publishers of C+VG, originally had doubts whether to publish the ad. Menzies, the newsagent chain, even insisted the cover art work be changed before it would be displayed.

Of course, Domark, while appearing suitably shocked, love the fuss. It's great publicity. A game based on the exploits of a psychopathic killer who hacked, slashed and stabbed himself into film notoriety, is bound to attract the odd criticism. And well they know it.

But what has this to do with the game? Not a lot, actually. The packaging and publicity may be sickeningly bloody and gory, but the game isn't.

Blood-curdling screams - at least on the Commodore version - are as bad as it gets.

Jason - such a nice name for such a fiendish killer - is wreaking havoc at Crystal Lake holiday camp where you have arrived on holiday.

He appears to be just one of the normal holidaymakers at the camp - until he attacks you/or the others with an axe. You have to find a safe sanctuary where Jason cannot go and then persuade the other holidaymakers to join you or kill him.

Weapons are scattered throughout the game which you can use in a bid to destroy Jason.

Most of the screen is taken up with a 3D scrolling view of the holiday camp, covering rooms, walls, fences etc.

Your panic rating - and Jason always attacks the person with the highest rating - is shown by the height of hair on the character's head at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, is a dumbell.

The other characters at the camp are shown in the bottom right corner. If Jason or you kill one of them they are replaced by a tombstone.

The mask shows how close you are to going mad and, therefore the amount of time you have left before the game is over.

The graphics on Friday the 13th are surprisingly crude and chunky on the Commodore version. The character you control also makes a noise like a machine gun when he walks. Quite why, we can't work out.

Friday the 13th is not a computer "nasty" and contains no more violence than most other computer games. If that disappoints you, Domark have thoughtfully provided two foaming blood capsules for you to chew and spit blood at the computer.

Such are the marketing skills of the Domark team that Friday the 13th will be successful.

Domark
£8.95

I'm no prude, I don't mind a bit of senseless violence from time to time and I wouldn't mind the tacky, tasteless advertising tor Friday The 13th if the game itself had a tew redeeming features.

But it doesn't.

The plot of the game is, of course, based on the Friday The 13th films in which a psycho named Jason hacks his way through a group of young people staying at a summer camp. Having worked on an American summer camp I can sympathise with Jason's feelings, though the game based on his exploits doesn't have a fraction of the excitement that the films generated in their own gory little way.

When first loading, the intro screen is accompanied by a gargled scream that sounds just like Snoopy in the Charlie Brown cartoon series. The instructions tell you that you have to warn all the kids on the camp and lead them to safety before Jason creeps up on them, but that's all they tell you.

There doesn't seem to be a way of warning them or of getting them to follow you at all. They all just wander around, apparently ay random and there's no way of affecting them - I even tried shoving a chain saw into a few people's earholes just to see if it would have any effect, but it didn't.

One of these wandering teenagers is actually Jason and every now and then he'll bump off one of the others, but as he looks just like the rest of them you won't be able to locate him unless he attacks you or he attacks someone else while you're nearby, but that hasn't happened while I've been playing and I've only ever spotted Jason as he kills me (end of game). And, as it sometimes takes quite a while for Jason to reveal himself, you can be faced with long spells of wandering from screen to screen only to die suddenly when Jason cuts off your head.

The graphics are very poor - your little stick man seems able to walk through tables, he becomes invisible when walking near certain objects but is unable to get close to fences for some reason.

This game has attracted a lot of attention due to the criticism that the advertising has attracted. I just hope that that hasn't led anyone to go out and buy it.