South Park
System: Nintendo 64
Publisher: Acclaim
Developer: Iguana
Released: 1998
Genre: 1st Person Shooter/Adventure
Capabilities: Controller & Rumble Pak Compatible

The Game

Based on the hit television show, you guide Kyle, Kenny, Stan, and Cartman in a 1st Person shooter adventure game throught the town of South Park, and with the Turok game engine incorporated, you go blasting away enemies and trying to kill off the evil aliens, and of course the only publisher willing to go in on a controversial game is no other than Acclaim.

Graphics

Well, I have to admit, these graphics really are amazing, when I first heard of the game, my first impressions of the game were going to be that all the characters were going to be cardboard cut outs like the television show, but I was amazed on how all the characters are done in high res 3-D, and they all look fantastic, detailed down to every notch like Cartman’s big fat Ass and Officer the funny look on the face of all the characters when you use the hypnotizing ray gun on them and they start singing, and so do the environments which resemble the town of South Park exactly how the tv show does(but I do think there is a little too much fog in my opinion), I think they did a great job at redoing the intro of the tv show for game also which has all the same lyrics characters, and everything, but redone in 3-D animation, the game also has some great animations of story scenes in the game where you see the characters lips move as they talk. The graphics would’ve got a higher score, but the lots of fog in the game causes problem seeing that far ahead of you and makes you get very frustrated during game play.

Sound

Why do you think they got a big label on the front of the box that says, “Contains strong language, for mature audiences only!” South Park was famous for it’s mature use of language, and that language went right towards the N64 version of the game as well, of course, just like the tv show, the major cuss words are bleeped out(oh just imagine the fit the congress Nintendo would’ve had if they found out their was some could to override those bleeps), but it still gives you a strong feeling of the television show. I just love the amount of voice used during the game, and the cinematics where the kids and chef talk sound fabulous! All the sound effects sound the way they should like the suctions from the plunger gun, farts, etc. Plus the background music fits the game right too. The best part of the sound is where Cartman gets hit over and over successively and he gets a cussing rampage going! Sound is by far the best part of this game!

Game play

The game incorporates the Turok style of play, so it’s a first person shooter, and you go around killing off all the bad guys using really weird weapons such as plungers, snowballs, “yellow” snowballs, and others too. The story is aliens have invaded South Park and you have to kill them all off, so you go through several levels, each level has a boss, and minor bosses, referred to as “tanks” in the game. The game has a multi player mode too which can be playable with up to 4 players so you can go at it in either frag tag, and death match modes of play.

The game lets you move around using the Goldeneye defaults of controls, but the controls aren’t as smooth as in Goldeneye. The control stick doesn’t respond the greatest, and can get you confused in many areas of the game taking sharp turns in the game with just simple wiggles on the control stick, so I strongly recommend using the turok style controls which the game calls “Tyrannosaurus,” but considering on how most gamers use only the default controls it’s gonna be a hard time playing this game, but for 1st Person Shooters to me, just about everybody prefers the Turok style more since it was the first 1st person shooter on the N64.

Replay Value

The story mode is really fun and those cinematics look great. Multi player is a blast too, but if you’re playing with 3 or 4 players all those windows get really tiny, and really hard to see(This seems to be a problem with lots of 4 player 1st person shooter games on the N64 like Hexen, Duke Nukem, and Goldeneye, for example.). Also it takes forever going through the story mode, and you’ll get frustrated with all the fog in the game, making some of the game play a nightmare.

In Brief

+: The game’s presentation is just like the television show, and it resembles it perfectly, the game uses a surprisingly good amount of sound

-: Lots and lots of fog, default controls don’t respond the greatest

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 7.4
Sound: 8.5
Game play: 5.8
Replay Value: 4.2

Overall: 6.4

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 6

Final Analysis

So far their has only been 3 South Park games on the N64:This title, Chef’s Love Shack(a quiz show game) and South Park Rally(a Mario Kart Ripoff). And out of all of them, unfortunately this one is the best, I nice debut for South Park gaming, but could’ve been way better, this game is really worth a rent for some quick thrills, but I only suggest buying it for the hardcore South Park fans who only want 1 South Park title for the N64 they can be proud of.