South Park: The Stick of Truth - What Did You Expect?

What do anal probing and abortions have in common? They're both scenes from South Park: The Stick of Truth that was censored in the non North American versions of the game. Like the TV show, there are a lot of offensive material, a lot of toilet humor, and of course there are some laughs now and then. I'm not a big fan of South Park as I only watched a bit of the episodes. But about 10 minutes into the game and I am already going "what the fuck!?" Then again, this is a South Park game. Did I really expect something else? The game is like watching an episode of South Park. The cut scenes look straight out of the TV show and the voice actors are all there. All the memorable characters are in the game, all the familiar places on the show are there, and there are millions of references to the show. Its actually very well done.

You start off the game as a nameless mute kid. You never get a name and you don't have any memory of what happened before but your parents moved you to this small town because "it'll be good for you." They tell you to make some friends so you walk around and meet Butters who take you to Cartman to join up the humans on their fight against the Elves. The entire game is about a live action role play of dungeon and dragons. You join up with Cartman and get a new name, Douchebag, because you don't talk then you get to pick between four classes, the fights, the mage, the thief, and the Jew. Yes, the Jew. You get skills like Circum-Scythe where you attack the penis of the target and its followed up with lots of blood and screaming. Anyways you go around doing quests and even the adults get swept along with the kids. Basically the humans and the elves are after the stick of truth because whoever controls the stick controls the universe.

The combat is actually pretty fun. Its not particularly hard when you finally get all the timings down but before then you could get killed easily. For every attack, skill, or defend you need to do different things to get it to work. For example, attacking with your weapon you need to click as the weapon flashes to attack or you will miss, when an enemy attacks you can click at the right time to block the attack. sometimes they throw a bunch of shit at you and you have to click a bunch of times. Then some skills where you spin around with your sword you have to twirl the analogue stick around before your sword shines then you click the attack button. Later on in the game, if you miss a block you basically just die. So there is not much room for error. On the bright side, if you get a perfect block you can do a counter attack!

You are able to bring along a follower with you like Butters the Paladin, Kenny the Princess, Stan the Ranger, Jimmy the Bard, and many more. They bring different abilities with them such as Butters able to "heal" wounded people, Kenny able to distract enemies by flashing his boobs, Stan getting his dog to piss on stuff, and Jimmy letting you get past handicapped areas. You can switch them at any time and you need to do that to get through some of the puzzles in the game. The only problem I have with this is it barely comes up. You use a follower maybe once or twice in the game and that's it. Its like its nice that we can do this but the times where we can use it is so limited it might as well not be there. These followers also join you in combat and have their own abilities.

You know whats surprising? The game actually has a lot of depth. You can bring with you a melee weapon, a range weapon, helmet, body, gloves. Each of these have different effects like, Bar Darts you picked up doing the quest for the bartender to kill rats in the cellar. It has the special effects of scatter. You can hit up to 3 times with it if you click it correctly, and with scatter it will randomly target enemies. It also has the effect of jagged which lets you apply a bleed if you do a perfect strike, which means hitting all the buttons. That shit is amazing for spreading effects around. While say the alien ray gun lets you hit everything in a row. A great sword can hit everything in a column. Then you have strap-ons which are basically bonus effects you can add onto your gear. Some gear has more slots some have none. Its really quite fun. You can mix and match like inflicting burn and combine that with Bar Darts to spread it around. Weapons that leech health when you hit a bleeding target. Strap ons that gain PP when you stun an enemy letting you spam your stun skill over and over.

However, you have to remember this is South Park. As fun as the game is you will eventually run into stuff like anal probing. I'm not a fan of it, in fact its really disturbing. You have Stan's dad strapped down on a chair while the alien anal probe is thrusting into his ass. You need to click the buttons correctly like in Simon Says. But one part it purposely goes so fast and difficult that you cannot follow it. If you get it wrong you can hear Stan's dad screaming in pain yelling to stop while it violently rapes his ass. What the fuck? The worst part is it goes on so long that if it was funny for the first 5 seconds it sure as hell isn't funny the next 5 minutes while you sit through that shit. Then there is the part where you and Stan's dad snuck into an abortion clinic and when people question if you're a real doctor you need to perform an abortion on Stan's dad's ass. There are explosions of blood as you tear his ass open. Really South Park? Not to mention you have to kill giant zombie fetuses later.

Overall, if you like South Park humor, and is a fan of RPGs this is the perfect game for you. If you are turned off by disgusting South Park humor then turn away from this game. If you're indifferent and just want an RPG then you might still enjoy it. It may be a giant South Park episode but it doesn't mean the game itself isn't fun. Just don't yell at me if you end up vomiting on the floor.