Stick of Truth in Review

Spoilers

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth is the most awful, abhorrent, morally repugnant sickeningly reprehensible piece of crap that I have ever had the good fortune to play and I wish it was twice as long with a much higher level cap, so that I could keep playing.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is faithful to the show.

While that is pretty much all I need to say for you to get a good idea of what the game is like, I feel like clarifying some things. As the top of the blog says there will be spoilers, but nothing I can write can anywhere close to do it justice.
So first of all we have the primary evil being a green goo that turns any organic tissue into zombie Nazis. Kind of offensive to a lot of people but I could deal with that. Anal probing aliens, pretty standard for south park so any players who are used to the source material probably would be okay. The level where the player had to climb into mister Slaves ass and search through to deactivate a snuke with the help of the spirits of the pleasure things that he had previously killed was par for the course with the lemiwinks episode. Even when the main character had to fake giving randy Marsh an abortion wasn't too far considering the woodland critter Christmas episode.
the only things that made me sit there and think 'Okay, hats a bit much' were the fight scene where the player was shrunk down to an inch tall and fought with another miniature character on your parents bed while they had fairly hardcore sex around you and the level where the player had to fight their way out of an abortion clinic that was infested with Nazi zombie aborted foetuses.
Don't get me wrong I managed to not get offended, but I (a.) am a fan of southpark and have been for a long time and (b.) have no moral compass to speak of. I did however sit there and think 'I have good friends that are really cool about awful things, but this... this would make them stop playing. Possibly cry.'

Despite that (or because of it) I think the game was really fun, the battle system was a little watered down, I grant you but on normal mode I did struggle with a few fights (Al Gore and a bunch of hobos near the beginning to name a couple).
I loved that you played as a completely new kid created entirely by you for this game rather than one of the major south park characters.
My major gripe with the game was that even with all the side quests - and there were not many - it was so short. I took maybe 12 hours including the time I spent on pause and at dinner. I've heard that there's going to be DLC, but I don't know what it'll be, when it'll be out or how much it'll be.
To be honest the £39.99 that they were asking for on steam was way too much for such a short game. £25 as I got it for was alright, but I think it should have only been about £20.
If I could have changed one thing I would have made it so that Tweak was more involved, solely because he's my favourite character and he was barely in it.

All in all it was a great game that I loved, let down by it's shortness and lack of re-playability (there were very few choices to be made and none that impacted the story). I'm glad I bought it.

Trailer-tubage
- James

P.S. do you like how I gave you a list of games I'm going to review and haven't done one of them but HAVE reviewed something completely different? Awesome no?

Yesterday

Yesterday two big things happened. One for me and one for America.
In America the government shut down due to a powerful and zealous section of the republican party refusing to agree to a budget unless the law (voted on and approved since 2009) dubbed 'obamacare' was repealed and cancelled.
Obviously the democrats did not cave to this demand. Not only is the law already in place, but it is already funded and its funding is not effected by the government shutdown. So from what I can understand from the news and from articles I've read, the Tea party section of the Republicans - in an awesome show of 'if we can't get the party our way nobody gets a party' - did not get their way so they threw a hissy fit and shut the government down.
I am personally at a loss for what can be done here. Dealing with people that refuse to accept facts, work with people that don't agree with them and refuse to govern responsibly is an issue that I don't think we've faced in so long I don't have any frame of reference. There's always been argument and tension between parties, but outright refusing to work with them, refusing to let them work, demonising the people trying to do their jobs, this is something that feels new.

Just so we're clear, it's not just the higher people of the government that suffer here, it's regular people. Due to the shut down more than 2million federal workers will have delayed pay checks, 800,000 of whom probably wont get paid. If the shutdown lasts longer than a few days veterans will likely not get their benefits. There will be no flu shots for anyone, despite it just coming to flu season. Some Food safety services will shut down (inspections, compliance, enforcement, monitoring and all lab research). Nutritional programs for women infants and children will be disrupted. Disability benefits will be interrupted. 200 patients will be turned away each week, regardless of illness (one thing that was highlighted was that it could include children with cancer).

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but how can a country like America remain a super power when it's so polarised and controlled by crazies that they can't even go into work?

In personal news the company I work for, Future Games of London, was yesterday acquired by Ubisoft.
I don't know what this means for us yet, but everything seems really positive, and I imagine that it will remain so right up until the day we miss and update and are all fired.
Who knows?

Shut-It-Down-tube
 - James

P.S. is the American government just re-enacting the West Wing?