South Park: The Stick of Truth

Do you like South Park? Yes? Are you wondering if you should buy it? Yes? Then stop reading this, you fool, and go to the nearest vidja-game store and by yourself a damn copy ‘cuz you’re missing out, sonfrog. I’ve gotten a few questions of the same variety (commonly known as a FAQ) and I thought I’d take a few moments to address ’em and give my personal opinion. GO!

Q: I’m not a South Park know-it-all. Will I still enjoy the game and get the references?

A: Back in elementary school I vividly remember shopping at Lamonts (a long-dead department store) and laying eyes on a grey t-shirt that had four, cartoonish-style boys posing in front of a signpost that read “South Park”. I didn’t know who or what they were but I NEEDED that shirt.  It was totally one of those “I loved you before I met you” moments. It’s like, the universe KNEW I would grow up to be a perverted buttsex-obsessed dork and the t-shirt was heeding me. But I digress. Once I figured out what South Park really was I became instantly hooked and watched eeeeeevery episode. But life is a thing that happened (so I like to pretend, anyway) and anymore I’ll casually catch an episode here and there. Anyway, he fricken’ point of this fricken’ story is that while I’m most definitely not the most diehard South Park fan, I understood 92.54% of the jokes and references and I still laughed my ass off.

If you’ve never seen an episode of South Park in your life, ask yourself the following questions:

1) Do I enjoy randomness and stuff that doesn’t make sense?
2) Do I enjoy offensive material? Do I enjoy swearing? Do I enjoy nudity? Do I enjoy turning into a gnome and crawling up someone’s asshole?

If your answer to any of those questions was “No”, then stay away. Stay far away.

Q: I’ve heard the game is short. Is it worth the price tag?

A: I clocked in at 14 hours. It’s worth noting I tried to explore every house and talk to every NPC, but even then I failed to collect everything. I also have a few remaining sidequests to wrap up and more NPCs to find and befriend, so there are likely even more quests I didn’t encounter. So, even at 14 hours there’s still a lot of juice to squeeze out of the sausage. (You like that analogy?) Whether or not you think it’s worth it is your personal opinion.

Q: The game is said to be so buggy it’s unplayable. Is it?

A: Unfortunately there have been reports of bugs/glitches/unfortunate circumstances ranging from being nothing more than a minor annoyance to game-breaking. During my playthrough I didn’t encounter a single issue. I played the Xbox 360 version, didn’t have the game downloaded to my hard drive and encountered NO issues whatsoever. Perhaps it’s a luck of the draw, I dunno.

Q: IS IT REALLY THAT FUN?!!!!

A: YES. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YES IT REALLY IS. There was a moment when I had to set my controller down because I was laughing too damn hard to continue a boss fight. This game is rude, crude and disgusting. And I love it.

The RPG elements are incredibly fun, if not a bit simple, but you have a wide variety of spells, farts and attacks to choose from. The fighting is interactive, so it’s much more than a “press A to attack!” type thing. There’s upgradeable abilities, perks to unlock, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT REALLY IS THAT FUN. GOGOGO!!!