Title: South Park: The Stick of Truth
Format: PS3(reviewed), Xbox 360, PC
Release Date: March 4th, 2014
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: M
South Park: The Stick of Truth has finally made it's way to the masses, after a troubled development, the Stick of Truth offers the full South Park experience on a video game platform.
Story and Presentation:Now I'm not the biggest South Park fan out there, but I have seen dozens of episodes over the course of the show's 18 season lifespan, so I'm familiar with the shows eccentric characters and offensive humor. The narrative in the Stick of Truth is presented like a really long episode, where the ever-popular fourth graders are playing harmless make believe in the backyard of Cartman's house. Things start off pretty harmless with the grade-schoolers, but the story quickly goes off the unbeaten path, and things quickly go from harmless to ridiculous. The narrative is a high point in the game, because you never know what's going to happen next. The game never takes itself serious, and I found myself laughing out loud on many occasions. If you're a fan of the overly offensive humor the show has been famous for, then you'll instantly love the game. It seems that the devs and writers held nothing back, and I found a few scenes quite jarring at times. Not because of what was going on during these specific scenes, just the fact that they got away with it surprised me multiple times. The game's visuals are pretty much on par with the show. The 2-D world of South Park is accurately represented here, with characters awkwardly moving about the small town just like they do on the show. There's only so much you can do here, if the devs would've went into any more detail, it wouldn't have looked like South Park anymore. The voice acting is great, with Matt and Trey doing the heavy lifting in that department as usual. The soundtrack is another bright spot, with an original orchestral score that draws a lot of influence from various other medieval shows and games.
Core Gameplay:The Stick of Truth is a RPG, but it's not as deep as various other RPG's out there, and that's what I expected going in. I never expected this game to be a Dragon Age or Final Fantasy type of game, it just so happens that the RPG framework was the best way to tell this outrageous story, and it works perfectly. You start off by creating your character, then you select your class. You have all your traditional classes like Fighter, Mage, and Thief. You can even select the Jew class, which is a first in any RPG. This is just another example of Matt and Trey's outrageous humor. There are a ton of weapons and armor selections to choose from, which all have a class that best suits that specific weapon. The combat is turn based, but the game always manages to throw in a new element or quick time event during the more eventful battles that help break things up. This is great because it keeps the combat from becoming repetitive. After battles and completed quests, you gain levels where you can gain new special abilities and attacks. It's a simple system, that works perfectly fine. Outside of combat, you can fully explore the small town of South Park, where you'll meet all of the popular characters from the show. Some of the characters will give you quests to complete, and some of the quests are just purely comical, and don't really push the main story in anyway. There fun distractions from the main story thats adds that much more humor to the already hilarious game. Al Gore being one of the standouts, his side quest storyline is just as bizarre as it sounds. The game isn't terribly long, it can run from 12-15 hours. That may seem short for an RPG, but by the time you're at the end, you'll be perfectly satisfied with the ending.
Final Thoughts:In the end, this the Stick of Truth feels like the perfect South Park video game. The game is absolutely hilarious, and the gameplay is solid foundation for a great story. If you're expecting a 40 hour epic adventure, this isn't the game for you. Otherwise, this is a must buy, especially for fans of the show.
S&S Rating: 9/10 @whatsPlay
