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"Fun...."

I remember about ten or eleven years ago, my dad came home with a computer game that he had found for sale at a garage sale for about fifty cents. The game was A Nightmare on Elm Street, and me, being a little kid who was practically a devout fan of the Freddy movies, was happy to have the game. Luckily enough, we had a computer that would run it, but for some odd reason, the only colors that existed when I played this were pink and gray, something like that, I don't know, I don't know jack about computers.

Me being a little kid back then had a lot to do with me not really enjoying the game because I couldn't get through the high difficulty. But I remember I got fairly far on the game, but and then since more advanced computers were coming out and the “internet” was all the craze, the crappy computer we had at the house eventually got disconnected and stashed away in a closet. So, I wasn't able to ever finish this game, but I can still remember a pretty good amount of it, even though it's been about eight years since I've played it.

Gameplay:
From what I can remember, you start of on Elm Street, and you control one of the characters from one of the movies (I'm pretty sure it was Nancy). The objective of the game as you progress was to find your friends through the levels while collecting items and keys and crap like that in order to proceed to the next level. In the first level, you have to jog around Elm Street, avoiding Freddy, and you have to get to some house, of course, without Freddy catching you and ending your game. From what I can remember, they let you pick different characters, too.

Apart from the first level, all the other stages are virtually the same thing just with different backgrounds and variations to your objectives. The game mainly consists of finding keys, finding your friends, and finding switches that lead you to other rooms while occasionally avoiding Freddy. But the weird thing with this game is that in the middle of this tedious gameplay is a fun, addicting game if you can get past the insanely high difficulty, which brings me to my next point:

The difficulty of the game is one of the reasons why I would stop playing it for long periods of time. Take the first level, for instance: You must find Freddy's house. That's it, that's all. Now, this sounds like something extremely easy, it sounds almost ridiculous. But this was not really an easy task, because most of the houses look alike, and if you're lucky enough to stumble past Fred's house, then you're going to the next level. But the fact that you have to basically guess which house was Freddy's was annoying and frustrating, and apparently, in direct contrast to the movies, Elm Street in this game equaled the size of about six street blocks.

In the next level, which from what I can remember took place in Freddy's house, you have to find one of your friends. Freddy's house was gigantic, and I remember that you have to press a certain key on the keyboard to trigger something (which would be your friend calling for help). But the thing is that you have to press a key right in front of a generic, normal looking wall. So, if you didn't randomly hit buttons on the keyboard like I did, you're gonna have a bunch of trouble trying to get past this level.

But again, despite the fact that the game's a pain in the ass in the gameplay and difficulty department, this game was addicting and very fun. For some reason, there was something that kept me playing for years (even though I never managed to get past the third level).

Graphics:
What can I say about the graphics? Back then, the only computer games I played were Wheel of Fortune and a few others, and now, I don't play any, so I'm not too familiar with the standards of computer graphics, especially back then. But, from what I can remember, this game looked decent enough. Some levels were rich with detail, as were some of the images in the opening of the game. When I played the game on my computer, for some reason, like I said, there were only two colors, so that kind of hurts my opinion on the graphics.
The game looked no worse than a Nintendo game, really.

Control:
Controlling you character through the various environments was one of the nice aspects of the game. Your character, from what I can remember, ran through the environments smoothly, and were extremely easy to control.

Sound:
Nothing much to really say here, either. Just the normal beeps with an occasional burst of background music (from what I can remember). What thing I hated when I went through the levels was the fact that there really wasn't any background music to keep me occupied (I don't know if it was my computer, or what). But again, not much to say about this aspect of the game, either.

Gameplay: 8 out of 10.
Graphics: 7 out of 10.
Control: 8 out of 10.
Sound: 5 out of 10.
Fun factor: 8 ½ out of 10.

Best feature: Addicting gameplay.
Worst feature: High difficulty, seemingly endless levels.

Overall, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a good way to kill off time. It's been years since I've played this, but I still remember that it was a simple game with addictive gameplay and ridiculously hard and long levels. But still, it's A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's Freddy, the iconic horror villain of the last twenty years. The game was fun, but it had it's fair share of problems.

Overall score: 7 out of 10.



Reviewer's Score: 7/10 | Originally Posted: 06/08/05