South Park: The Stick of Truth Reviews

In a genre of gaming often dominated by Japanese productions, it's a different experience to play a product that is indisputably, 100% messed-up Americana. Truly, there is nothing like it, for better or for worse.

“Obsidian Entertainment delivers one of its best-ever efforts in South Park: The Stick of Truth, even if the game doesn't quite stick the landing.”

With the release of the Fractured But Whole, you'll be able to get a free copy of The Stick of Truth upon purchase. But does it still hold up?

As might be expected, South Park: The Stick of Truth is a fantastic game for South Park fans, perhaps less so for everyone else. If you're not a fan, feel free to knock a star off the score, as so much of what I like is down to setting and characters. Mechanically, there are some rough edges, like interacting with the environment or the inefficiency of selling a lot of items at once, and the combat could do with a little tweaking. However, when I mentioned earlier that it plays like an extended episode of the show, that should be a massive point in its favour. Possibly the best tie-in game, and yes that includes The Chronicles of Riddick.

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For fans of both South Park and RPG's this is a must play. For everyone else, I'd recommend it thoroughly.

If you’re coming into South Park: The Stick of Truth hoping for a deep RPG experience, you’ll sadly be disappointed. The true joy comes from the South Park universe, seeing and interacting with these notorious characters within their notorious town. It’s shocking, funny, and a wonderfully crafted South Park game but a mediocre RPG title.

In its 17 years on our screens South Park has offended pretty much everyone with its caustic humour but its games have struggled to bottle the show’s comic magic.

The humor is the star of the show, so long as your content with passable gameplay being your only roadblock to the next joke or collectible to reminisce over. Seventeen years in, we probably won’t see a better South Park game ever made.

A side-splitting romp with all the sharp satirical humour we've come to expect from South Park. Strip away its wit and, despite a few flaws, you'll find a satisfyingly deep RPG.

Fans of the show should be going after The Stick of Truth without even thinking twice. Gamers who fancy a diversion from the super-serious RPGs and shooters that fill the shelves at the moment would be well advised to give it a spin, too. Obsidian have done extremely well under intense pressure to create a generally solid game and bring it to market, and should be applauded. As should we, given that the game contains a million and one swear words and we didn’t let our halos so much as slip during the course of this review. Hell yeah!

Obsidian Entertainment together with the creators of South Park have created a one-of-a-kind game. The town of South Park has been transformed into its digital equivalent, and we check how successful the authors were in this endeavor.

The Stick of Truth makes one thing abundantly clear: I never want to play another South Park video game made without Trey Parker and Matt Stone's direct, intimate involvement. With a controller in your hand, you are almost literally – gloriously – playing a 14-hour episode of South Park. There’s much, much more here for series fans than the uninitiated, but it’s a light but good quality role-playing game in its own right. It is, in a way, Season 18 all by itself. It is funny, shocking, self-effacing, and pretty much everything I could ask for from a South Park game -- even if it’s mostly a one-and-done experience.

It's a testament to The Stick of Truth that my enthusiasm for the game didn't dim in the face of those hiccups. Despite them — and the jokes that occasionally run out of steam — this is an experience that even the most casual fan of South Park is going to get something out of, and one of the truest translations from screen to game I can recall. At the risk of belaboring the metaphor I started with, other developers have painted Cartman's face on a stock car. Obsidian has ripped out the pistons and swapped in the still-beating heart of South Park. Other games treated the world Matt Stone and Trey Parker have crystallized over the past two decades as a prison they have to escape from. The Stick of Truth happily confines itself to that world, and manages to build a comfortable, hilarious home of its own.

The turn-based combat is too straightforward (and before long, overpowered) to satisfy those seeking a deeper experience, but Obsidian has covered all their bases. The mechanics may not be more impressive than they had to be, but the wealth of flourishes and show-quality storytelling is an extremely pleasant surprise. Even if it may only please existing fans - a group that seems deserving of some attention.

The thing that is going to prove most divisive though, is the length of the game. I completed the main story, plus a good chunk of the side quests, in less than eleven hours.  Personally I think the game is paced perfectly, with next to no pointless filler, but if you’re expecting a 40 hour epic then you’re going to be disappointed.

Cards on the table time: not since Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham games has a developer so successfully made such an amazing title out of a licensed property, one that not only is a perfect South Park game but an incredible RPG as well. It may not offer you tons of choices or a gigantic open-world like The Witcher 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition will probably end up doing, but already they have a challenger for RPG of the year as far as I’m concerned. The Stick of Truth has loads of fun things t...

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Respect my authoritah!

When South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker approached developer Obsidian Entertainment 4-years ago to make a South Park role playing game, I doubt they realized how much of an undertaking it would be. There is no way they could have envisioned all those setbacks along the way. Despite the bumps in the road, Stick of Truth has finally arrived, albeit a tad late and perhaps missing out on a huge opportunity with its next gen omission. Not being able to play Stick of Truth on my PS4 or my Xbox One is undoubtedly a let-down and quite likely it is also a disappointment for others who have already taken the next gen leap. Many of my gaming nerd buddies have already packed up their Xbox 360s and PS3s. Well, all I can say to those folks is “shame on you” as you are quite possibly missing out on the definitive South Park gaming experience of our generation. Yah, it’s that good.

If you don’t watch South Park that often, you most likely won’t enjoy The Stick of Truth as much as someone who does. The RPG elements are very serviceable but they’re not going to satiate most of the hardcore genre fans out there. It’s a good thing then that the rest of the package is filled with so much care from the show’s creators, that it makes it something truly special.

Way back in 2002, a small group of boys set out on a quest in the idyllic mountain town of South Park to return a copy of Back Door Sluts 9 to their local video shop, avoiding a group of pissed off sixth graders along the way. That early episode of South Park – inspired by the release of Lord of the Rings –combined with the subsequent release of Game of Thrones almost 10 years later, effectively spawned a universe within a universe in the world of South Park. Following on from the console...