When South Park debuted on Comedy Central in 1997 with its brazenly foul-mouthed children, violence, sex and general lewdness, it was met with both enormous praise and great condemnation. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone pushed boundaries and people reacted, especially notable was when the episode “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride” questioned the morals of its time by suggesting that maybe it was okay to be gay. Over the past seventeen seasons the show has tackled just about every taboo, fad and phenomenon imaginable. At the zenith of the show’s runaway success it also spawned unrelenting waves of merchandise tie-ins (Who didn’t know someone with an “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” t-shirt?). Perhaps some of the most grievous cash-ins were South Park video games; this editor still has some harsh feelings about what a lousy way the Nintendo 64 game was to spend Christmas 1998.
While the show is still undeniably popular and lucrative, with the South Park “boom” ostensibly over, the release of South Park: The Stick of Truth had me hoping that this was less of an attempt to exploit the series for a quick profit and more of a sincere attempt to create a legitimately fun game. Creators Stone and Parker are said to have approached Obsidian Entertainment about the game, and their involvement, along with the numerous lengthy delays at least gave the wishful reason to believe that this would not be a half-hearted piece of work. Now, after two years of waiting The Stick of Truth is out, and while it may not be the greatest game we could have hoped for it, it’s a delightfully puerile and entertaining experience that should delight fans of the series both new and old.
In The Stick of Truth you play as the new kid in South Park, dubbed “Douchebag”, a silent protagonist with a mysterious past. Your tale begins with being recruited by the Grand Wizard (Cartman) to help protect the mystic Stick of Truth with the power to control space and time from the evil Drow Elves. But this is only the beginning of your story. I don’t want to give away much more than that as most of the fun is the inanity of the whole story, but your journey will take you throughout South Park and pit you against an array of foes, from other kids playing make believe to Nazi zombies and anal-probing aliens, along with plenty of other bizarre and familiar locations that live up to South Park’s reputation for cleverly crass humor.
Choose from classic RPG classes, like Warrior or Jew
The game breaks down into combat and exploring more or less equally. Playing as Douchebag and one companion character you will explore a South Park dotted with familiar locations like Tom’s Rhinoplasty and the City Wok along with tons of favorite characters from the series. Long time fans of the series will appreciate the sheer volume of references and just how far back in the show’s history they go. Throughout the map, which isn’t particularly big but is delightfully detailed, you will find other characters who will give you quests which reward you with experience, special items, Facebook friends and occasionally powerful summons to aid you in battle. Environments are interactive and as you progress you gain new abilities and spells (Different ways of farting) which allow you to access more locations or neutralize enemies without combat. Exploration is usually pretty simple and generally rewarding, but there were multiple times in dungeons where I felt like I didn’t understand what I needed to do to progress, and multiple instances where finicky game mechanics were more difficult to figure out than the challenges I tried to solve with them. While one or two of these problems actually ended up taking a lot of time to figure out, for the most part they were relatively small issues.
Time not spent exploring will be spent fighting. Combat pits you and your companion in a face-to-face battle against enemies in a fairly standard action-RPG battle system. When attacking or defending, visual cues will signal you to press buttons at precise times; hitting those cues at the right time will increase the effectiveness of your action. In addition to ranged and melee attacks, Douchebag has different abilities to help him in combat depending on your class; the thief class that I used gets attacks that give foes powerful afflictions. Your companions also offer unique abilities, with enough variation that each NPC feels unique and useful in different ways; Butters the Paladin, for example, can heal you, while Princess Kenny can bring enemies under the spell of his hot breasts. While the battle system has enough depth to keep it entertaining for a while, most of the joy of combat comes from the visual gags and weird abilities of you and your enemies, so once you’ve fought an enemy one time the experience starts to seem a little limp. Most of the combats felt a little too easy even in spite of the game’s level-adjusted characters, but occasionally an encounter would feel punishingly hard, requiring a little more strategy and trial-and-error to figure out. These aren’t huge issues, but they do make the game feel a little rougher than I would have hoped for.
Despite some gameplay issues The Stick of Truth is still a decent title on its own. But what makes this game worth playing is, obviously, that it’s South Park! The setting, characters and plot are all in fine form this time around and the humor really feels in step with show. It’s so good that you can forgive its flaws and play through them to find out what happens next. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s good enough that I think most anyone who’s ever enjoyed the show will be able to appreciate just how on the mark this game is. While I feel like I don’t need to say this, it sounds like people are already getting their feelings hurt, so here it goes: The Stick of Truth is obscene, rude, offensive and vulgar. If you are playing a South Park game and expect it to be otherwise then I feel like you only have yourself to blame when you are upset. For those of us with a sense of humor and reasonable expectations, The Stick of Truth feels just like an extended episode of the show, even pushing a little further than what you can normally get away with on network television. There is lots of swearing, lots of adult themes (Rape and abortion, for example), violence, nudity, antisemitism… The list goes on. All of this is handled with the blatant, unapologetic and sometimes brilliant manner you would expect from South Park.
In the end, South Park: The Stick of Truth is an average game and an above average entertainment experience. Without the tie-in to the show you would have a title that probably wouldn’t do much for anyone, and if you’ve never watched much South Park you might still laugh at some of the jokes, but it feels like a lot of the game will be lost on you. For fans of the show the somewhat shallow gameplay should be more than sufficient glue to hold together the superb narrative which really makes this game feel like it’s worth having. It’s certainly a game you could wait and pick up at a discounted price, but you must beware of spoilers if you do! In the end, after years in the works, multiple delays and numerous bad tie-ins South Park finally has a video game worthy of its legacy and it is one than I can heartily recommend.
