I can have pretentious tastes. As someone who graduated in one of the most pretentious degrees (English literature) and who actually loves early American literature, I tend to support the idea that games can and should progress towards a higher standard. That games are art and should be treated as such.
I loved South Park: Stick of Truth.
It’s bawdier than the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and has the kind of infantile humor that has made the series famous. There are scenes involving abortion, anal probes, Nazi’s and dildos. This is not a game for a pearl-clutching fan of high art.
It’s also hilarious. To be sure, there’s a high barrier of entry. You really do have to be a fan of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s eclectic, offensive television show. The game, which clocks in at about fifteen hours and which I completed over the course of four nights, is chock full of references for the enduring fan. For example, there are quests where Al Gore sends you to hunt down ManBearPig.
The game follows a silent protagonist, a new kid in town who gets in the middle of the war between Cartman’s kingdom and the realm of the elves (Stan and Kyle). It’s like a dirtier version of Double Fine’s Costume Quest, with turn-based combat and little kids in costume who use terrifying abilities against each other. Because this is a South Park game, your magic abilities can come from farts. This means that a significant portion of the game is fart based humor.
The game doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it does make you wish it was a tad longer. I went through and cleared up almost all of the side quests in the game after finishing the main quest and was still hungry for more content. Fans will say that the game plays like an episode of the show, and it does feel like a chain of connected shows, like the Mysterion/Cthuthlu arc. Every time you feel like the action has reached its peak and fallen, it starts up again. By the time the final scene happens, you feel a tiny bit cheated by the overall shortness of the game.
Combat can get repetitive over time, especially since most of the attacks you’ll use repeatedly will be the kind that have huge cut-scene like events attached. This will lead to you repeatedly watching Professor Chaos deal damage to zombie rats a few too many times. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll get access to a wide variety of familiar South Park characters, all with unique abilities and attacks.
Most importantly there’s Princess Kenny, one of my favorite characters from the course of the series.
For a fan of the series, South Park: Stick of Truth is a must play.
