Andy Naylor reviews South Park: The Stick of Truth…
Cartoon spin-off games, much like their movie counterparts, meet with mixed success. More often than not you get a poor tie-in that is designed to cash in on the popularity of the source material – see last year’s awful Family Guy game for a prime example of this. These games are usually written and made by, at best, mediocre writers and developers. On very rare occasions, something of great quality will surprised us all and fill us with glee – The Simpson’s games from 2007 was one of these surprising instances. However, even that strayed somewhat from the show. As enjoyable, and true to the source material as it was, it wasn’t quite the cartoon. It was a 3-D platformer set in The Simpson’s universe. Today, South Park: The Stick of Truth is released and you may as well be playing the actual show.
For starters, Obsidian Entertainment, of Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II fame, are the developer – a company with a proven and popular track record. If that wasn’t enough, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have penned the story. If you approached someone playing South Park: The Stick of Truth, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were watching the show, that’s how incredible it looks. Everything is perfect with how it looks and handles, it’s essentially a 10 hour interactive episode. It’s filled with all the extreme humour, controversy and childish pranks we all love and adore from its TV equivalent.
That being said, it’s so like the show that Ubisoft have self-censored portions of the game within Europe. Firstly, no real explanation for this has been forthcoming from Ubisoft , but the real surprise is that Parker and Stone have very little to say about it. They are usually quite protective of the show and do not want any of it censored as it interferes with the story. So for us in Europe to seemingly suffer an inferior version, it’s disappointing. My advice, buy the US version of the game to get the full experience. The PS3 is region free, so a US version of The Stick of Truth will play happily on your European PS3.
The Stick of Truth is an RPG at heart; the player must level up, improve weapons and complete quests. The RPG aspect does become a little humdrum at times boarding on being a chore – the turn based battle scenes become especially repetitive after the novelty of disgustingly funny attacks wears off, it’s only South Park’s humour and the amusing plot that keeps you involved. The level of detail involved is second to none, everything you can think of from the TV show has be incorporated and used, and it makes for a fun and spectacular gaming experience.
For those of you that haven’t upgrade to the Xbox One or PS4, South Park: The Stick of Truth is proof that there is still plenty of life and enjoyment left in the previous generation of consoles. Developers simply haven’t abandoned you and moved on to the latest shiny toy, plus this isn’t available on next-gen consoles. Those people who sold their 360 or PS3s, unlucky, you’re missing out on an absolute gem of a game.
Andy Naylor – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published March 6, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
