Old School Horror Game End Screen: Friday the 13th – NES
Here we go again, another old school, horror video game end screen. This time around in honor of today being Friday the 13th, we take on Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
During the first day of scrambling around Camp Crystal Lake when not dodging zombies, ravens and wolves you’ll periodically have to duck into random cabins to stave off Jason as he attempts to attack the campers within.
If you damage him enough and manage to survive with at least one counselor you’ll be treated to this screen:
That being said, you’ll start up on day two. Which is more of the same: kill the zombies, wolves and ravens, fight the reanimated, decapitated head of Pamela Voorhees and again go one on one with Jason.
Take him out during day two and you’ll be treated to the following. This time around there’s a picture! Jason, after having been soundly beaten, truly looks like a defeated man. Head hung in shame, mask deformed and askew, shoulders slumped and gut hanging out. He looks like Homer Simpson dressed up as Jason. But then….
Jason looks straight ahead, his piercing gaze searing your very soul. His shoulders squared and gut sucked in, (legs however, still splayed) he’s ready to take on day three.
Day three holds more zombies, ravens and wolves, one more throw down with Pamela and if you make it that far, your final confrontation with Jason.
After all of the rocks, knifes, machetes, pitchforks and torches you hurled at the undead bastard, Jason finally dies. In defeat he is again reduced to a frumpy, broken down heap and as a completely dissatisfied gamer we’re left with another cliched “is he really dead?” end screen.
This time around, unlike the movies, Jason really did stay dead as there hasn’t been another officially licensed Friday the 13th game since. So I guess, congratulations, as a gamer you have succeeded in doing what ten movies worth of protagonists failed to do: Put Jason down and keep him down.
Old School Horror Game End Screen: A Nightmare on Elm Street – NES
You stayed up late, put off personal hygiene, hanging out with friends and practically crippled your thumbs in the process but you finally did it. You finally beat that game you’ve been playing every day after school for the past three months. For your dedication, keen hand/eye skills and perseverance your reward is finally there before you. You hold your breath in anticipation, afraid to even blink.
And then it happens, a huge, uninspired totally not worth all the time and effort, colossal let down.
Video games from the 80’s and 90’s were notorious for having the worst endings. Even great games, considered classics by today’s standards fell victim to this. It was like the writers and programmers used up all of their collective efforts designing the game and storyline and had nothing left in the tanks to hammer out a decent ending. Most endings were no more than a tacked on, single screen with a quick congratulatory message and maybe some small bit of animation.
So, in an effort to exercise the demons I’ve long suffered due to lazy game designers I’ll be showcasing some of my favorite (favorite does not mean good) old school, horror video game end screens. Starting off with A Nightmare on Elm Street on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
After battling several incarnations of Freddy, gathering up all of his bones and then burning them in a furnace, that last screen is what you get. Nightmare indeed.
The 8-Bit Jason Project
In honor of the Friday the 13th at the end of this week and inspired by the abysmal yet still endearing 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game as well as THIS killer shirt at Mini Cassette Tees we here at Jack’s Attic decided to commemorate the occasion by putting together an art piece we’ve been calling “The 8-Bit Jason Project”.
We always thought it was odd and a bit irritating that in the game Jason was running around in a purple jumpsuit and a blue hockey mask. But what would have happened if the game designers had created 8-bit character sprites for Jason as he appeared in Fridays 3-8? Well, we think it might have looked a little something like this:
