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  1. Games

A history of Friday the 13th in video games

Features
By David Houghton
Published 13 May 2011

Horror cinema enthusiast Dave takes you through an in-depth look at a masked machete madman's career in games

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Friday the 13th. Superstitiously the unluckiest day of the year. But in 1980, it proved to be particularly unlucky for a bunch of fictional summer camp councelors at the Crystal Lake resort, as a bloody reign of terror began in the first Friday the 13th movie. That legendary gore rampage has continued through nine sequels, a Nightmare on Elm St. crossover and a more-fun-than-it-had-any-right-to-be remake, and has cemented hockey-masked aficionado of disembowellment Jason Voorhees as one of horror cinema's most iconic antagonists. So, with today itself being Friday the 13th, we thought it was high-time for an in-depth retrospective look at the movie franchise's storied history with our beloved video game medium.

Yeah, basically there were only two Friday the 13th games, one on the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1986, and one on the NES in 1989. Both were utter crap, and the NES version is widely accepted to be one of the worst games of all time.

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May 13, 2011

Yeah, basically there were only two Friday the 13th games, one on the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1986, and one on the NES in 1989. Both were utter crap, and the NES version is widely accepted to be one of the worst games of all time.

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David Houghton
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Former GamesRadar+ Features Writer

Former (and long-time) GamesRadar+ writer, Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.

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