 |
| The children are our future. Well...maybe not these ones. |
Warning: The following review has spoilers and some language. Read at your own risk...m'kay?
When dealing with a video game based on a licensed product, such as a movie or a television series, expectations are extremely low due to the overwhelming shitty track record throughout the years. There have been a few (and I mean....a few) exceptions, including the wonderful Goldeneye on the N64, some of the Lord of the Rings games, and Escape from Butcher Bay starring and voiced by none other than Vin Diesel as Riddick.
South Park has had a handful of games in the past. The initial game was an FPS on the N64 and while it was fun for a little while, it quickly grew tiresome fighting a seemingly endless amount of turkeys by flinging snowballs, darts, and plungers at them. From this we move into Chef's Luv Shack...which I don't even want to talk about *cries inside*, and South Park Rally, a pitiful Mario Kart clone. Jumping years into the future, we were graced with two South Park games via download on the XBLA, South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!...and South Park: Tenorman's Revenge. The first was actually a decent game, but incredibly short...and of questionable genre for diehard fans of the show, considering casual video game players probably have no idea what a Tower Defense game even is. Tenorman's Revenge had potential in the beginning, but quickly became monotonous, infuriating, and simply not fun. I remember me and a group of friends purchasing this simultaneously and screaming at each other over Xbox Live, trying to pin the blame on each other for the suggestion to buy this travesty.
I will admit, I was incredibly worried when I found out South Park was going to have another video game based off of their material. The games in the past have not quite captured the essence of what makes the show great, and the idea of an RPG with South Park characters made me think it was going to be similar to a flash game you can play for free on the internet. Well, I can gladly say I was wrong; South Park: The Stick of Truth delivers for fans of the show, including all of the raunchy over-the-top humor the show is known for, while delivering a solid gameplay experience to boot, but has a few issues.
I would like to begin the review portion by stating that the game is clearly
for an older demographic, as noted with it's
hard M rating. I say "hard M" because, although this is cartoon-based
content being presented in front of us, the game devolves into being
downright pornographic at times. Hell, the game was even censored in
some areas outside the
United States for some of its content. I was absolutely shocked by
what was displayed on the screen, but was laughing the entire time. No
video game has made me laugh this hard in my life. That being said, I
would suggest to stay far away if you are easily offended, or are around the vicinity of younger children. I'm not kidding.
The plot of the game starts off simple, then becomes overly ridiculous (in a good way), just like an episode of the show. We are presented with a character customization screen to create our "new kid" and venture out into South Park to simply "make friends" as stated by your in-game father. The new kid meets Butters, and is brought to Cartman, who is involved in a child-like fantasy game where the members of Kupa Keep are protecting the "stick of truth" from the elves...shortly thereafter, the stick of truth is stolen and a giant conspiracy unravels, questioning who took it...all the while you are learning about this "new kid" you are playing as. As the game progresses, the way you make friends relies on someone sending you a friend request on Facebook. Some are obtained over the course of the main campaign, others are obtained through completing the game's hilarious side-quests, and the rest are obtained through simple exploration.
The main campaign in itself is short for that of an RPG, perhaps roughly 8 hours, give or take, not including the side-quests. You are taken from iconic areas in the show, to a UFO where anal probing is being done, to inside the walls of your house after you are miniaturized, and to many other locations thereafter, including the foreign land of Canada, where the game gives you a world map, essentially turning into a classic 8-bit RPG. The breaks in the main campaign of trying to get the stick of truth back are absolutely hilarious, while extremely vulgar and raunchy. It is the first game where I had to fight a gnome while shrunken, under
my parents having sex. The main storyline was a blast, but I let down by the ending of the game, due to it being rather predictable and extremely abrupt. Others may beg to differ, but I found the pay-off to be entirely weak in its execution.
The side-quests are varied and well worth doing considering they are just as good as the main storyline. Some of these include helping Al Gore track down ManBearPig, assisting Mr. Hankey and his wife with finding his children, and "finding Jesus." Most of these side-quests reward you with friend requests, while some reward you with "summons" where you can call in a character of the show to do a large amount of damage to a group of enemies. I never had the need to use any of the summons in the game (you can't call them in during bosses), but used one or two just to see what would happen, and I advise players do the same because some of the animations are laugh-out-loud funny.
On the game-play front (battles), this game delivers pretty well. It is very, very similar to the gameplay mechanics of Paper Mario. Upon attacking or using an ability, you have to press a certain button or do something with the controller to maximize damage. Same goes with blocking; if blocking at the correct time, it efficiently minimizes damage done to your characters. The party member system is even ripped straight out of Paper Mario, as you can only have one "buddy" with you at any given time. Sure, you can swap back and forth between them, but the fights are far less "Final Fantasy" than people will expect going in. To accompany you in battles, there are many forms of equipment that can be found or purchased, including armor and weapons. The physical appearance of your character can be changed due to make-up and wigs you can find, as well as by visiting Tom's Rhinoplasty...where if you get the most expensive procedure, your character's head is turned into a real-life photo of David Hasselhoff. This is hilarious at first, but can prove to be annoying because any hats/wigs you attempt to put on do not appear on the character, so if you opt to revert your face, you lose a significant amount of money and will have to pay the full price to change back to the 'Hoff.
The exploration element of this game is highly enjoyable, as you can walk around the entire area of South Park, and its surrounding elements, and enter (almost) every single door. While in the field, you will see enemies wandering around (again...like Paper Mario and other games of this nature) and will have the opportunity to hit them to get the first strike in battle, or ignore them entirely. Your "buddy" will always be following you, and each character has an out-of-combat ability which can help with manipulating elements in the environment, such as Kenny's ability to "show his boobs" to someone to distract them. Your character gets a handful of abilities to be used outside of combat, including a varied set of farts to do things such as clearing out rats, and lighting things on fire (the farts can also be used in combat, and are considered your "magic" of the game). You also gain the ability to teleport via a piece of an anal probe broken off in your ass (believe me, I am not making this stuff up), and the ability to shrink yourself down in size to enter small areas.
While there are many hilarious scenarios to take part in over the course of the game, there are also some downfalls. For starters, I had an issue where in multiple cutscenes, my character was nonexistent. The cutscenes still played out, but the fact that there was a gap where my character was supposed to be standing was a bummer. The leveling system caps at 15, which is far too low. I hit max level not even 3/4 of the way through the game, because I jumped on every side-quest when I had the opportunity. Somewhat going along with this is the overall length of the game; while scouring South Park for side-quests and collectables certainly lengthens the overall experience, you can still complete everything this game has to offer in around 10-12 hours...which is very short for an RPG. My biggest complaint, which upset me greatly, is upon completion of the game, you are allowed to wander around. However, the game environment seems to mirror that of the "first day" you are in South Park, which means that there are not certain enemy types which are presented further into the campaign. One side mission relies on you going to the police station and accepting a quest in which this enemy type needs to be killed. It is completely inaccessible if you complete the main story without accepting the side-quest and completely mars your game if you are gunning for 100 percent completion; this is completely inexcusable and requires you go through an entire new game to complete. While we're on this topic, too, it seems there is absolutely no way to replay story missions to collect missed gear/Chinpokomon collectables, also demanding a restart from the beginning. I put in additional effort to scour every single story map, and collect every last item I could get my hands on while making friends with everyone in South Park, only to have my game be ruined because I was unaware of a particular side-quest...which, in turn, gives me the last friend request I needed. Not cool, man. Not cool.
Overall, South Park: The Stick of Truth is a great game that mirrors the quality one would come to expect from an episode of the show. The combat system is solid, the storyline is hilarious, and the open-world South Park is a blast to wander around. Although there are a few glaring flaws with the game, I would still recommend everyone to give it a go that is fan of the series. But, please make sure you're of age; Curse words, naked body parts, and crude sexual humor is abound.
Overall Rating:
8/10
(8 out of 10)
No comments:
Post a Comment