14 DAY TRIAL // South Park – The Stick of Truth is one of the video game launches of 2014 that deserves more attention and will probably be overlooked by a wide number of players simply because it was launched early in the year and on the Xbox 360, the PC and PS3, while bigger titles have captured the attention of players during the fall season.
The premise is simple and involves the kids of the show choosing separate sides in a war which involves the purported magical item.
As tends to happen when South Park is involved, the situation quickly escalates and includes Nazis, aliens, elves, gnomes and more, and the stories are written to include a large variety of in-jokes and cultural references.
The development team at Obsidian have worked closely with Matt Stone and Trey Parker in order to make sure that the entire game universe is consistent and manages to capture the irreverent tone of the television show.
The writing of South Park – The Stick of Truth is very good and it’s one of the few games that had me and people watching me play pausing just to laugh after a particularly inspired gag.
The development team also managed to deliver some solid voice work and it is an inspiration to see show creator Trey Parker bringing a number of characters to life, really immersing players into the world.
Gameplay manages to be engaging as well
South Park – The Stick of Truth could have been just an extended joke, a chance for fans to simply spend some time with their favorite characters, but Obsidian has a long history when it comes to the role-playing game genre and delivered a very solid set of mechanics.
The real-time reactions required during battles can be a little annoying at first, but after a few hours they become second nature, and all the powers and skills are well integrated with the themes of the show and the personality of the characters.
South Park – The Stick of Truth does have moments when exploration of the town feels a little tedious and takes too much time and combat can also sometimes feature weird difficulty spikes.
But the game is completely joyous, even when alien probes are involved or when Nazis show up, and it tells stories that will never probably be part of the TV episodes.
Take a look at a full review of South Park – The Stick of Truth on Softpedia.
