Drunken Reviews – South Park: The Stick of Truth
South Park: The Stick of Truth launched on Tuesday and you definitely should believe the hype – especially because of that 3 month delay to ensure the game kicks ass.
Like most people, the first (and loneliest) thing I did was create a Jew class with my own narration; The adventures of Douchebag the Jew. You will always be Douchebag, accept that you will never be referred to as “Boobs” in the game and move on. I had to.
There is a small “training” mode after your character selection to name yourself, choose your class and get accustomed to the combat style. The game is responsive – if you explore every corner of Kupa Keep Cartman heckles you for being a super gamer. Cartman heckles you for everything now that I think of it – especially your choice of race/class combination. There are 4 classes to choose from; a fighter, a mage, a thief and a Jew. All the classes play the same way with the exception of the 4 main class-based abilities. As you can imagine, the fighter class is the melee warrior, the mage is self explanatory, the thief is in essence a rogue and the Jew is a berserker class – the more damage you take the more damage you deal. Each class starts out with key armor that gets upgraded at various points in the game.
Now Douchebag the Jew starts out with a kippah, a Star of David cape and a “Shepherds Staff”. The first move he is able to utilize is the Sling of David, which he ambitiously uses to gain experience to unlock more moves – like Jew-Jitsu. I did try different combinations – and will not ruin the responses for you – but Cartman does not have an aneurysm if you are a black, ginger, Jew. Just putting that out there.
The class choice screen.
Regardless of your class, you learn key spells from Cartman throughout the game; one being “Dragonshout” (a.k.a a massive fart). Each spell has something to do with farting – farting on an enemy directly, or “cupping a spell” and throwing the fart. Cartman does leave you with some timeless advice though; “never fart on a man’s balls”.
There are a ton of “summons” which are rewarded for doing side quests, allowing you to summon the questgiver to assist you in some way. Look forward to helping Mr Kim save his restaurant from those damn “MONGORIANS!”, or finding Jesus in a game of hide and seek.
Tons and tons of Southpark cameos from Mr Slave to MANBEARPIG and Al Gore – this is seriously the kind of game you can play while getting drunk and then laugh at when your friend decided to confiscate the controller from your inebriated ass.
Combat is timing based, you are required to hit a button when your weapon flashes to deal damage or when icons appear to defend from attacks. THIS ACTUALLY REQUIRES COORDINATION AND CAN BE DIFFICULT. As simple as the combat sounds, it isn’t. You have a variety of attacks with different levels of damage, and each has a specific utility against an enemy maneuver.
There is only single player campaign (no, not even local co-op) but for anyone watching gameplay, it looks and feels like a South Park movie. This means it is a great game to play on your own or with friends, and depending on your level of coordination – get wasted. You will be too busy laughing to care that you’ve died a thousand times to a homeless heroin addict.
Overall this is a hilariously offensive game. Trey Parker and Matt Stone made a point to do their very best to offend absolutely everyone. There is even a trekkie dressed as Spock talking about retrieving something from ‘the frozen planet of Hoth’.
Yeah, it really is that good.
