I was initially a bit apprehensive about South Park: The Stick of Truth. I’m not a huge turn based RPG fan, I enjoy the series but I’m far from a super fan and the bankruptcy of THQ leading to delay after delay began to make me despair. But, thankfully, that despair doesn’t appear to be warranted. Don’t worry about spoilers as you read on, I’m not far into the game and I wouldn’t spoil anything without warning. For reference I’m playing the PS3 version.
I’m having an immense amount of fun with South Park. I sat down to try it out for a few hours and was stationary so long I swear I almost ended up with DVT. The intro cutscene has Cartman describing a neighbourhood wide game of Dungeons & Dragons where Humans and Drow Elves are locked in constant battle over the powerful Stick of Truth. The intro made me chuckle a few times and is a good, succinct way of setting up the story and how you, The New Kid, fit into it. After Cartmans story exposition you pan to your house where your parents are unpacking and speak mysteriously about why they moved to South Park. It’s one of my the most enjoyable intros to a game I’ve watched for a while. It’s funny, it’s full of silly clichés and it’s effective.
After the intro you’re dropped into a fairly comprehensive character creator where you can choose skin tone, outfit, hair, make up and accessories. There’s a lot of variety, and don’t worry if you can’t decide between one hairstyle or another. The environment is littered with accessories, wigs, facial hair and loads more. After the character creation you’re kicked out into the streets of South Park to go make some new friends. You bump into Butters and he invites you over to Cartmans house to play, here you choose your class (Fighter, Mage, Thief or Jew) and learn the basics of combat. After a fight between Humans of the Kingdom of Kupa Keep (KKK) and Elves the Stick of Truth is stolen and you’re sent into South Park to assemble the rest of the Human army.
The environment is great. It looks a little small at first when you look at the map, but it takes a while to traverse on foot (there is a fast travel system. It’s Timmy) and there’s plenty to explore. You can go into a lot of the houses and stores, though some require finding a key and some paths are initially blocked. There are lots of kids and adults to interact with as well as fights breaking out all the time. But best of all, it’s South Park. The game looks exactly like an episode of the show, with some added extra effects. The animations are the same as the show, the backgrounds and locations are pretty much pixel perfect to the series. Some of the special ability animations are superb as are the special attacks of allies you can summon in combat.
The combat is fun, and gets progressively more and more challenging. I would describe it as a healthy mixture between turn based and Quick Time Events (QTE’s). During each turn a character can use a potion or healing ability and attack with a choice of melee, ranged, magic or special abilities. Each attack requires some extra player interaction, either pushing the right button at the right time, manipulating the analogue sticks or hitting a series of keys in the right order.
The timing of the button mashes is tight and one wrong press can turn the tide of a fight. Blocking takes the same approach with you often having to block lots of attacks in quick succession. The combat can be challenging, but I’ve not found it to be too hard so far. I’ve struggled against some of the larger foes, but most battles are dealt with fairly easily. In situations when I was faced with wave after wave of fights it became more of a war of attrition and required me to carefully manage potions and healing and this was where the difficulty ramped up. Despite the lack of a staunch challenge (so far) the gameplay is fun and engaging.
But it’s not just the gameplay that makes South Park: The Stick of Truth fun. It’s how funny, and how obscenely silly, the humour is. No matter how cynical you may be, how refined your tastes, how well read you are if you don’t laugh at Cartman proudly announcing “Welcome to the KKK, Douchebag the Jew” there’s something wrong. If you love the humour of South Park, you will love the writing in the game. Even if South Park only normally extracts a few mild chuckles you’ll still find some funnies in the Stick of Truth.
The humour goes from silly, childish things like Butters’ constant giggles when you fart to the running satirical gags about silent protagonists in games. And throwing poo at people, don’t forget throwing poo. I enjoy this kind of humour, and I love that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Whilst it’s great to play games about an Ayn Rand inspired underwater capitalist utopia that’s collapsed into anarchy and survival in the post-apocalyptic Russian Metro it’s just as great to play games about a wise-cracking Latino special agent with a grappling hook and a kid running around a huge game of D&D.
When it was announced that South Park was being censored in Europe and the UK, I was a little disappointed at first. One of the great things about South Park is it’s unflinching, over the top and, yes to some, offensive humour. It pushes boundaries, steps over lines and infuriates people, and it should be allowed to do so. Everyone has the right to be offended, just as they have the right to say something offensve. I’ll stop now before this turns into a freedom of speech rant because the censorship doesn’t detract from the game at all. The messages that appear in place are probably funnier than the scenes they’re covering and it’s clear how frustrated the creators were about it. The images describe the scenes taking place so the effect is kind of like bleeping over swearing. You know what’s happening and it’s somehow funnier that it’s being covered over.
There are a couple of issues I’ve had with South Park so far. The loading speeds are inconsistent, and some times it’ll take a few minutes to change scene. I’ve encountered some framerate issues that have gone on for a few minutes at a time, though I’ve read that this is specific to the console versions, and it’s frozen and crashed my console twice over the course of a day. They don’t spoil the game by any stretch, but it detracts from the otherwise superb experience.
Like I’ve said, I’ve not played a huge amount of the game (probably about six or so hours), but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m not a huge South Park fan and I’m not a big turn-based RPG guy either, but this is well worth picking up, especially if you’re in the market for something fun, something clever and something that will make you laugh.
