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" Release Date: March 7 (Europe), March 4 (North America) Platforms available on: PS3, Xbox 360, PC Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: RPG Fans of South Park have had to wait for a long time for a video game that really does the show justice, a wait that was extended even further by the various delays encountered by a title once in development under the THQ banner. South Park Let&amp;#039;s Go Tower Defense Play was good fun back in 2009, and South Park: Tenorman&amp;#039;s Revenge wasn&amp;#039;t without its moments, but neither game really captured the essence of the South Park TV show. We&amp;#039;re happy to announce that the wait for a truly great South Park game is finally over with The Stick of Truth. So frequent are the laughs, so plentiful are the in-jokes, cameos and show references, that even without a lick of gameplay, The Stick of Truth would still be entertaining.  The story was teased in last year&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Black Friday&amp;#039; trilogy, with the kids of South Park once again dressing up in their medieval fantasy garb, this time for an adventure to recover the titular Stick of Truth. Cartman resumes the role of Grand Wizard, Kenny dons a wig and dress as the princess, while the likes of Butters, Token and Tweek appear as healers and warriors. Almost every fantasy and RPG convention is lampooned in some way. From the turn-based combat to the silent protagonist, nobody escapes ridicule. So frequent are the laughs, so plentiful are the in-jokes, cameos and show references, that even without a lick of gameplay, The Stick of Truth would still be entertaining. The lead character, for example, is fully customisable in every way, but without the power of speech, he&amp;#039;s unable to convey his true identity to Cartman and is subsequently referred to as &amp;#039;Douchebag&amp;#039; for the remainder of the story. It&amp;#039;s actually one of the less offensive jokes in a game which features character classes such as Fighter, Mage, Thief and Jew; ginger hall monitors with the ability to make you vomit; and special abilities that allow you to break wind in your opponent&amp;#039;s face, or kick them in the crown jewels. As crude and offensive as the humour is, however, it&amp;#039;s hard not to laugh (and cringe) at the audacity of some of the more politically incorrect jokes.  With series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker on board, the game most definitely sounds like an episode of South Park, but credit must also go to the development team for making it look like one too. The show&amp;#039;s distinct art and animation style has been captured so perfectly that it sometimes feels like you&amp;#039;re watching an episode of the South Park TV series, rather than playing a game. The illusion is only ever really broken when your characters are free to explore the town. It&amp;#039;s during these moments when some of the less desirable video game traits rear their ugly head, such as loading times and exhaustive pause menus. The inclusion of loading times when traversing the map and entering battle is disappointing, even if they&amp;#039;re not lengthy enough to truly frustrate. The lack of mini-map and quest pointers also detracts from the exploration element of the game. Until you learn the map, you&amp;#039;ll need to keep pausing the game and sifting through various menu screens to find out where to go next.  Fortunately, the team has included unlockable fast-travel points courtesy of Timmy which does, at least, speed things up. There&amp;#039;s even a joke about it. Minor irritations aside, the ability to explore South Park opens up new gameplay opportunities, side-quests and the chance to meet even more series regulars. In the spirit of the role-playing genre, characters can search the town for Pokemon-style collectibles, engage in turn-based combat with elves, meth addicts and hobos, and even perform an incredibly important quest for Al Gore involving the ManBearPig. One of the game&amp;#039;s better ideas is a perk system based on the amount of friends you add-on Facebook.   By exploring the town and meeting new people, players can select new perks such as increased melee damage, all the while receiving hilarious messages on your wall. It&amp;#039;s little touches like this that not only make The Stick of Truth a very funny game, but one that&amp;#039;s not without innovation.  Take customisation, for example. The decision to focus on a brand new character might seem like an odd choice at first, but it means that other characters&amp;#039; personalities and abilities are reflected in their outfits, while you&amp;#039;re free to experiment with the game&amp;#039;s huge number of costumes and items. The show&amp;#039;s distinct art and animation style has been captured so perfectly that it sometimes feels like you&amp;#039;re watching an episode of the South Park TV series. It wouldn&amp;#039;t make sense to kit Princess Kenny out with gas masks, beards, scars and glasses, when his abilities revolve around seduction. Not only can these abilities be used to solve puzzles when exploring the town and searching for items, but players can also use them in the game&amp;#039;s surprisingly enjoyable, albeit occasionally repetitive turn-based battles. The Stick of Truth&amp;#039;s combat system isn&amp;#039;t as deep as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but timing-sensitive inputs and a substantial list of buffs and potential pitfalls do enough to keep engagement levels high during the more challenging encounters.  Occasional spikes in difficulty throw up some balancing issues, however, although we generally preferred these encounters to the throwaway battles that punctuate exploration sections.  Without the need to think about tactics and plan strategies - potentially switching out supporting characters - some battles felt more like filler than anything else. Fortunately, battles outside of quests are largely optional and can mostly be avoided, while mandatory combat scenarios - as you break your friend out of detention, for example - feature more varied and challenging foes. After so many delays and in an industry with a relatively poor track record of turning animated comedy shows into games (need we remind you of Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse?), South Park: The Stick of Truth comes as a pleasant surprise. Not only does The Stick of Truth capture the show&amp;#039;s wicked sense of politically incorrect humour, but it wraps it up in what is actually a pretty fun turn-based role-playing game, making it a must for fans of the series and the fantasy genre.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/review/a554938/south-park-the-stick-of-truth-review-360-captures-the-shows-humour/>