South Park: The Stick of Truth

When many think of the series South Park, they are most likely to think of the foul language, fart jokes, racist comments, and more fart jokes. And they'd be right. While the show has been running for quite some time, its popularity has only been increasing. This has only been confirmed with the recent release of South Park: The Stick of Truth, an RPG-style game that was put out on March 4, 2014.

The Story

There's a new kid on the block that's just moved to South Park, Colorado for a fresh new start with his parents. The move has left his parents anxious as there are secret reasons for the move to the small, quiet mountain town. Immediately the parents force him out of the house to go mingle with the other kids in town and he's dragged into a fight with Butters against an elf as they're playing an epic role-playing game.

When all's done, Butters brings him to Eric, the Wizard King, and without much of a choice, the new kid is nicknamed Douchebag and is brought into the Wizard King Cartman's Kingdom of Kuppa Keep as a new player. The object of their role-playing game is to keep The Stick of Truth safe and in their borders (which are Cartman's backyard) at all times. This goal is foiled when there's a sudden elf attack and the Stick is lost to the other side.

Douchebag now goes around South Park completing jobs in order to help get the stick back for the Wizard, and surprisingly, he is a great warrior in their game. Seeing this, Kyle, the Elf King, wishes to recruit Doucebag and bring them into their ranks.

However, things get messy when aliens arrive to probe the citizen of South Park one night and their ship crashes into the local mall. The government immediately tries to cover it up with an excuse being that there's a new Taco Bell being made, but goop that's leaking from the ship is causing for people to turn into Nazi Zombies.

Now both kingdoms are in trouble and they must unite in order to save the town and, most importantly, to reclaim The Stick of Truth that's been lost!

Gameplay

As stated previously, the game is a single-player RPG game. It's available for play on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows, and rated M for 17 and up in the United States for explicit language and adult situations. In some foreign territories, the game was even censored and showed a screen that mocked the reasons why it wasn't being shown. The game is also viewed in a 2.5D, third person perspective.

When you first start off, you're given the choice of being either a Warrior, Thief, Mage, or Jew, and each option has their own advantages when you play the game. The choice you make here doesn't affect your game, though Cartman will most definitely make a smart remark if you choose the Jew option. In the game, Douchebag is usually accompanied by different characters of the series. Butters is the first character that travels with Douchebag, and other characters, like Stan, Cartman, Kyle, and Kenny, can be unlocked by playing through the game.

Each character has their own special and unique melee, ranged, and magic attacks. There are different weapons available for melee and ranged attacks, like swords and hammers for melee and arrows and car rims for ranged, but magic is a league all its own. Douchebag's magic is his ability to create farts. Throughout the game, Cartman and a few others teach Douchebag different farts in order to conquer his enemies and progress through the game. In order to use magic or melee or ranged attacks, the character must have enough magic points or power points respectively. With each new battle, you earn points and can level up Douchebag and his friends.

You're also able to wander throughout South Park freely and can chat with some of your favorite characters from the series. Some characters will give you side missions to complete and a certain few, if you complete the mission they give you, will unlock a special feature and allow a special character, like Jesus, Mr. Kim, or Mr. Slave, to help you win a battle.

Throughout the game, there are a lot of different things to do, objects to collect, and people to meet and talk with.

Graphics

I found the graphics of the game to be of amazing quality for the way it was presented. It is similar to the way the show appears and I think that gives the game a unique look that I haven't seen in any other game. The colors are vibrant where needed and it makes the quiet little mountain town of South Park really come to life. The battle scenes are also well presented and really give the game a fantasy look.

Overall

In all honesty, I'm not the biggest South Park fan out there. Sure, I enjoy the episodes, a few racist jokes, and the dirty toilet humor, but this game made me fall in love with it. I found it hard to put down and played through it three times in one weekend. It was hilarious and at times a challenge and the plot really kept my attention with its wacky twists. I enjoyed the characters and their commentary throughout the game and couldn't believe how far the game would go that really made me realize why it was rated M. Nonetheless, I thought playing this game was a great way to pass the time and keep myself thoroughly entertained in doing so. For this game, I'm going to have to say that I'd rate it a 9/10 and would suggest it to any other gamers who enjoy some crude humor or just the show South Park in general.