First Impressions – South Park: The Stick of Truth

South Park is one of the longest-running and most well-known animated TV shows in the history of pop culture. Its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are avid video game players and references and nods to popular video games have always popped up in South Park in some form or another (Kenny and the golden PSP; the boys saving World of Warcraft; Stan and Kyle’s Guitar Hero rock-n-roll escapades). But despite the show’s affinity for the world of video games, there’s never been a South Park game that was any good – until now.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is an RPG and lets you create a character in the style of the show and join the other boys of South Park in waging an epic battle for the Stick of Truth, the most powerful artifact in the universe (which is also just a stick). You join Cartman’s human army in a fight against Kyle’ elves to see who will wield the Stick of Truth while meeting dozens of other well-known favorites from the show.

What you’ll immediately notice about SP:SOT is its visual style, which looks exactly like an episode of the TV show. Whether you’re doing battle or exploring the town, it will be easy to forget that you’re playing a video game and not watching an episode. The sound effects, voice acting and music are also all incredibly familiar, as Trey Parker and Matt Stone lent their voices to the game to truly bring it alive.

I love all the references and nods to jokes from the show that were included in SP:SOT. Every store you go in has a classic song from the show playing in the background (I heard “Montage” from Team America in one store – still hoping I hear “Gay Fish” sometime too). Collectibles come in the form of finding Chinpokomon throughout South Park and you’ll even help Al Gore protect the town from his nemesis, Manbearpig. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll love how much attention went into every little detail of SP:SOT.

Exploration throughout the town is simple, thanks to a fast travel system, and what’s really cool is that for the first time, you get to see where locations from the show are in proximity to each other – like where do the boys live in relationship to one another, where is the school and just how close South Park is to Canada.

SP:SOT is a dream come true for fans of the show. You get to join an epic quest with the most well-known characters all while being treated to the music and humor that make South Park one of the most popular shows of all time. I’ve only played SP:SOT for a few hours so far but every minute so far has been incredible. Be on the lookout for my full review in the coming weeks.

(Image from Wikipedia.org)