Farting your way to glory
The South Park: Stick of Truth is the latest game by the creators of the show of the same name (without the stick of truth bit) and was released march 2014. It is available on steam, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 . After the epic trilogy that was the black friday parody of Game of Thrones that I really
If you have ever watched south park, then you probably know that no taboo ever goes untouched. In episodes and movie we encounter swear words en masse, racial stereotypes, drugs, sex and unabashed toilet humour. Now imagine every south park episode that you have seen, take all the worst parts in them, make them 100 times more politically incorrect and you get the kind of taboos that are broken in the game.
One taboo I will mention, and that will hopefully not ruin the story too much is the appearance of nazi zombie foetuses that you must destroy. When I first encountered these guys, I thought to myself, wait did they really just do that? There is so much more where that came from. However, on that note I do have one critique to make. In comparison to the episodes these taboos were really over the top, and sometimes I felt like the game was just trying to hard to shock.
You just have to look at the actions of some censors to see some truth in this. For example in some parts of Europe some significant parts of the game were censored and not allowed to be shown. However, the creators of the Stick of Truth took this obstacle and managed to turn it into something quite funny, making fun of the censors and graphically describing the scenes that the players would miss.
The game is in the format of a classic RPG, as much as south park is a classic animated TV series. All the classic mechanics you would expect are present, like classes, skills and equipment. However in each case Trey Parker and Matt Stone have added their own twist to the classic formula by either making fun of the ever present RPG clichés (e.g. the sword of a thousand truths has the description: This once-legendary weapon is now outclassed by everything in the new expansion), or just introduce skill moves such as roshambo which involves you kicking your opponent in the balls! The combat itself was generally very well balanced, although I did find it quite easy. One thing I enjoyed immensely was the fact that you could have main characters of your series as companions. My most frequently chosen character was Butters (gotta love butters), however each companion felt unique in their own way and added something to the gameplay. Lastly, even though I rarely play RPGs, especially turn based ones, I thought this was incredibly good (even though it was making fun of the traditional games), and I was contemplating starting to buying some ‘real’ RPGs.
The story of the game is incredibly good. Quick summary; you are a new kid in south park and must join the fight to gain control the stick of truth before it falls into the wrong hands, while fighting with and against classic south park characters.
While playing I did actually feel like I was in a south park episode. Everything was fully voiced, the story was deep and could have easily filled about 3 episodes. The fact that I could actual ‘influence’ the story (while I am very aware I wasn’t really changing anything), just fulfilled one of my wildest dreams. My character, which could be modified in incredibly many games throughout the game, fit right into the south park lore and never really fit out of place.
The story itself was filled with so many little easter eggs, that if you were a seasoned pro of the south park series you could expect a treat around almost every corner. This included all the ‘junk’ that could be found throughout the game, which was drenched in lore. I spent a significant amount of time just searching for these guys and reading their descriptions!
The graphics of the south park game are just like the episodes, so just like card cutouts. So no Crysis 3 graphics shenanigans, but I would not have wanted it any other way. Therefore you should can assume that this game should run on any PC, along with the previous gen consoles (just keep in mind that there are no mac or linux versions).
The some of the achievements in the game are quite fun and rewarding to get, others are witty and hark back to good old south park episodes. Others you just get without even trying kind of by accident. Then there are those where you need to know about them before you start up the game so you even have a chance of getting them, which to be honest is not that bad. However, there are those, (I am looking at you chinpokomon), where to realistically finding all without dying of boredom or being extremely lucky need a guide to help you out. I generally detest those kind of achievements, but I can see that the creators of the game saw those achievements as a way of extending your playing time. When seen as a whole, I do have to concede that the achievements did add something fun to the game and it would have been poorer without it.
I do have a major concern with this game though. Firstly, even though you could fit three episodes into it, this still isn’t very much. This was exemplified when it came to my actual hours when I completed the game, which stood at a measly 12 hours. Now I tell you I did not speed run this or anything, I actually took my time and did all the quests tried to do as many achievements as possible on my first run through and find most of the easter eggs. Given that I paid almost 30 pounds for this game, 12 hours of good game play is not worth it.
Furthermore, replaying this game is not really an option, just like re-watching a movie that you just watched. This means that I will have to give it a bit of a rest, forget the details of the story a bit and then play as a different class.
This is one of the only hopes I see in replay value, the different classes. The story will be exactly the same, but I played the warrior class my first time round, so choosing any of the other classes will very likely change my gaming experience. I guess I could also just get all the achievements in the game, but given that most of them need some kind of guide I don’t really see the point.
All in all I have to see this is a really good game, with memorable events and quests. The game is a perfect extension of the existing south park material while also adding a great platform for future DLCs and sequels. It is enjoyable and a MUST have for any south park enthusiast. However, given the relatively high price, for anyone who just is interested in the game, I would wait for a steam sale or the price to drop naturally over time.
