Trey Parker and Matt Stone have their hand in many different entertainment mediums. They have one of the most popular TV shows ever with “South Park,” they have a very successful musical on Broadway, and they have released a handful of great comedy films. The next medium for the comedy duo to break into was video games, and they have done so expertly with South Park: The Stick of Truth.
Park and Stone teamed up with Obsidian Entertainment, who are well known for their great RPGs. There have been “South Park” games released in the past, but none of them had Parker and Stone working on the project personally. With The Stick of Truth , Parker and Stone wrote the game, and were involved with the voice work, just like in the show.
Actually, the game looks and feels like you’re watching a 12-hour long episode of “South Park.” They do a good job of transitioning from gameplay to cutscene where sometimes you don’t even notice. I played the game on PC, and it looks gorgeous in 1080p.
Just like the show, the game has that same funny wit and the sort of ridiculous situations that somehow make sense with the story. You play as a new kid that has just moved to South Park. You get to create a character, and the customization options are incredibly deep. You can make almost any character you can imagine.
After creating a character, your parents tell you to go outside and make friends. The first person you run into is Butters, who tells you to go meet the Grand Wizard, who is Eric Cartman. Cartman explains that there is a war between humans and elves. So you join the human side, and begin your quest to take back the Stick of Truth, which controls the entire universe. The South Park characters are playing another one of their games, and you get to be in the middle of it.
What makes this game so special is how true it stays to the TV show’s lore. But under that, Obsidian has created a fun RPG that you can lose hours to playing.
The Stick of Truth has a turn based combat system that also has you pressing button prompts to initiate attacks. It is similar the combat system in Paper Mario. It is a lot of fun, and doesn’t get old over time. There are a variety of hilarious attacks, including special attacks that see other characters coming in and finishing the fight. For example, Mr. Slave has a special move that he does that scares off the enemies. If you know Mr. Slave, you can probably guess what that special move is.
The game takes place in an open world map of South Park, allowing you to travel all over the quiet mountain town. For South Park enthusiasts, this would be the first time you get to see a complete map of South Park. There are also some surprise environments that you go to later in the game that are hilarious.
It should be noted that the entire game is hilarious. It is hard to make a good licensed video game, but this is as good as they get. Anyone that has seen an episode of “South Park” in the past will have a lot to laugh at.
I had a blast playing South Park: The Stick of Truth. It took about 15 hours to play through, and I have a bunch of content still to unlock. I’m guessing I could easily play for another 10 hours or so. Even for people that are not huge fans of the show but are looking for a new RPG to play, I would recommend The Stick of Truth.
Score: 9.5/10
South Park The Stick of Truth was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Ubisoft for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 4th. A Retail copy of the PS3 version was provided to us by Ubisoft for reviewing purposes but the game was reviewed on a purchased copy of the PC version.
