Love South Park? Buy Stick of Truth. Now. (NSFW)

South Park: Stick of Truth is a polished adventure role-play game, drawing from both JRPGs and point and click adventures of yesteryear. Full of laugh-out-loud moments, you’ll have flashbacks to Day of the Tentacle if you’re old enough – one of the last precious PC games that actually had a sense of humour. Stick of Truth revives that tradition, and then some.

It is however unashamedly South Park humour – full of anal probing, flatulence, abortion jokes, antisemitism and everything else your sensible parents warned you about. Some of the courser scenes are censored outside of America, but for console audiences only – get the game on Steam if you want the full experience.

Movie and TV tie-ins generally don’t work well, as previous South Park games have demonstrated aptly – a series does’t run for 17 years without at least dabbling in a little game-of-the-movie-of-the-tv-show-of-the-book – but let us never speak of those atrocities again, for they bear not thinking about. Stick of Truth breaks that cycle, fully embracing the TV show’s unique format, instead of trying to make it look 3D. It looks exactly like the TV show – to the extent that anyone walking in the room who didn’t know better would think you were watching another episode – and there’s an entire season’s worth of quality dialog and cut scenes in there. But it’s interactive – that’s you walking around farting on passers-by, breaking parking meters and generally making a jerk of yourself.

You play the role of a nondescript new kid that never speaks, and regardless of what you type in as your name, you’ll be referred to as Douchebag (and later, Sir Douchebag). The creators have done a remarkable job of faithfully recreating the South Park town in a digitally rendered fashion. If you get tired of walking around though, Timmy will happily ferry you between fast-travel points on his wheelchair chariot.

Stick of Truth isn’t afraid to laugh at itself and the RPG genre: from Cartman telling you not to speak to his mum because she’s not a part of the game, to the literal mountains of absolutely meaningless crud you’ll amass due to obscenely liberal looting opportunities. You can collect no less than 7 different vibrators if you venture into Cartman’s mother’s bedroom alone, which serve no purpose other than to be sold for pennies. Or shove them into your own treasure chest, should you wish. That wasn’t a euphemism.

Part of the success of Stick of Truth is down to the choice of studio: Obsidian Entertainment are no strangers to RPGs, notably with Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeon Siege III, and Fallout: New Vegas under their belt, you would have expected nothing less than a stunner. And that’s exactly what has been been delivered. As far as RPG elements are concerned, it’s a remarkably deep and accomplished game.

Combat is a traditional turn-based J-RPG affair for yourself and a single companion, with timed button presses to successfully pull off or enhance an attack. Each character has a set of special moves, each as hilarious and varied as the other. Princess Kenny can summon a horde of woodland critters to rush the enemy, but as they approach a rapid succession of alternating button presses is required to shake them off himself lest he be carried away in the attack and naturally, eaten alive. There are no random encounters as such, but the town is littered with dirty Elves looking to blacken an eye, with whom you can initiate combat should you wish. Farting on an opponent before combat begins gives them a “grossed out” de-buff, and your allies have a number of special abilities should you wish to try a sneakier approach. Kenny can flash his boy-boobs at the enemy, getting them to open gates before smacking them unconscious. The humour of those special attacks is lost rapidly, but the game continues to throw enough new moves, items, companions and quests your way that on the whole I found it kept things fresh.

All your favourite characters make an appearance, drawing on plot hooks from throughout the show’s history – but the main storyline is of the latest season, continuing the epic battle for the Stick of Truth in a complex fantasy concocted mostly by Cartman.

The plot is naturally quite linear, though there are a good number of sub-quests to mix things up. Don’t expect much replay value here though – once you’ve seen all the cutscenes and played through the main storyline, it’s unlikely you’ll want to do it all again. Estimates put total gameplay at around 12 hours.

I’m happy to say that this entire review can be summarised in a few words: if you like South Park, you’re going to freaking love Stick of Truth. Buy it quick, before Titanfall takes over your life.

10/10, would get probed again.