South Park (1998 game)
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| South Park (1998 game) | ||||||||||||
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 Screw this game, im going home! - Cartman (probably)
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South Park is a first-person shooter video game based on the American animated sitcom of the same name. The game was developed by Iguana Entertainment, using a modified version of the engine used in the Acclaim Entertainment-published Turok 2: Seeds of Evil; both games shared the same publisher and were released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998 in North America, and for Microsoft Windows in 1999.
Note: This does not focus on the N64 port, since that version is decent, if you want to see that page of it, click here.
Plot
A malevolent green comet of combined evil blasts across the universe towards Earth and flies through the town of South Park. The comet causes several major occurrences to befall the town and it is up to the boys to destroy the evil created from it, their first problem is wild rampaging turkeys.
Gameplay
The game is a first-person shooter. The game's single player mode places the player in control of one of four characters: Cartman, Kyle, Stan, or Kenny. The player must defeat a variety of enemies using the various weapons found throughout each stage. The player has a total of 100 health, whenever they are attacked by an enemy then lose some health, losing all health causes a Game Over and a high score screen to appear if the player has many points, the player can gain health by finding Cheesy Poofs boxes littered around the stages, there are also Snacky Cakes boxes which fully restore health but are rare to find, there are also Beef Cake cans which grant invisibility, finally, there is armor in the form of football pads, which protect the player and instead deduct armor points instead of health points. Innocent creatures are spread around the levels of story mode. Killing an innocent creature costs the player a hefty amount of points.
A multiplayer mode is made available for the player and other friends to play, access to multiplayer cannot be granted unless there are two controllers connected to the console. For the PC version, multiplayer was changed to be online.
Qualities That Killed Kenny
Overall
- Very poor graphics, while fitting for the show and even for the time it was released. The PlayStation version however is the most noticeable with cubic and polygonal shapes, ugly character models and maps with polygonal and poorly detailed graphics, in fact that version look even worst than some terrible looking Sega Saturn games to the point that it's feel like the game was a rushed job as said before in the first section.
- Bad draw distance, which makes you not able to see what's following you on the map until you get close, which also includes enemies, this make the game either hard due to how bad that issue is or very confusing to see where to go.
- Terrible AI. Enemies do little more than spawn and then home in on your position.The artificial intelligence of the enemies chickens is terrible, mostly because the enemies will almost never try to take cover or flank you to take you out because they move a little slow and a little fast, instead, they just run to your address in the middle of the shooting waiting for you to kill them.Although AI can be especially frustrating if a large horde of enemies start attacking you and you can't defend yourself.
- Terrible music, with the exception of the South Park theme song, of course. Even the composer admitted that the game's music was a rush job that he hurriedly put together after finishing work on Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, but howewer the PS1 version soundtrack is miles worse (see in the PS1 section)
- It takes too long for you to die because the life bar has a big health, although as noted above, if a large horde of enemies starts attacking you it takes too much life away from you and you can hardly defend yourself if you don't have enough ammo. It's also a good thing because some of the later levels are horrendously difficult due to the poor controls and awful camera.
- There is roughly half a second delay from when you push the trigger, until the snowball hits your target, making aiming extremely hard
- All you do is shoot, shoot and shoot... and nothing else. There is no strategy whatsoever, except in multiplayer mode where you have to have some practice with weapons, making this game incredibly repetitive and primitive for a 1998 game.
- It's even worse in the PC version, as the enemies and bosses have double the amount of health they have in the PS1 and N64 versions, making the game harder and even more tedious.
- Even though the voice acting is done by the actors on the show, it's pretty poor and the characters repeat the same phrases quite a lot, which can be a little annoying after a short time.
- When you want to choose a character before playing the game, you have to wait until they have finished what they are saying. Similar to picking a command in Plumbers Don't Wear Ties.
- There's no difference in playstyle between the four main characters, so the option to play with different characters is just as a skin, the characters also don't have differences in weapons or abilities.
- The sound effects are very annoying and get repetitive easily, like the turkeys.
- Lack of playing abilities in Multiplayer mode and the weapons (dodge balls, dart guns, etc.), level design (way too big), and player movement (eternally sluggish) really don't lend themselves very well to the multiplayer game, not to mention the stages aren't even named in the PlayStation version.
- The level design it's really quite bad, you'll spend a good portion of your time in extremely large, open areas, such as the middle of the street, large fields, and similars. This leads to a very close horizon, complete with loads of enemies. Plus, since the ground and fog are both white, you'll eventually spend some time staring at a completely white screen, hoping that you're actually moving and not just bumping up against a wall of snow. Sure, it's a cold, snowy town, but it still gets in the way of the gameplay. So with the fog as bad as it is, you're forced to stare at your radar almost constantly.
- While you can enable it in the settings, the crosshair is by default turned off, so are subtitles.
- If you fail to kill a tank enemy, you are forced to kill them in a sudden death round. If you fail to kill it in time, it's an instant game over.
- The first-person style gameplay doesn't really fit the tone of the South Park, even if doing a South Park game with this genre isn't a bad idea.
- Speaking of the gameplay, as mentioned above, it runs on the same engine as Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, pretty much making it a reskin.
- The weapons are pretty ridiculous even for South Park standards. Some examples of weapons are a toilet plunger gun and a dart gun.
- The game does a poor job giving you new ammo if you run out.
PlayStation
- The graphics are even worse than the PC version, since it is horribly pixelated, poligonal looking and also, the lightning is incredibly horrendous, as well as the characters models being very ugly to look at, games like Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout and Fighting Force had way better graphics than this.
- Abysmal sound quality that manage to be worse than the N64 version (which had a great sound quality), as here the chicken sound are horribly ear bleeding due to being compressed and also, the musics themself are extremely compressed to the point of sounding unfinished.
- Atrocious draw distance that is so bad that it's make the draw distance from the PS1 port of Shadow Man look good by comparison, the town in particular look like they we're covered with fog.
- Awful cutscenes quality due to the cutscenes being in an FMV format compared to the other versions being in CGI, this make them having washed out colors and the animation is even more terrible.
- For some weird reasons, they removed two levels from the other versions, which might indicate that the port was rushed.
- This port is even shorter than the other versions, lasting 2 hours only, this is because of the fifth pointer and the fact that this port is easier than the other versions.
- Awful voice acting in this version that sound so bad due to how compressed it is, and also for the fact that the characters constantly repeat their lines, as stated in the overall section.
Kickass! Qualities
- Some jokes and phrases in the game are at least decently funny.
- The game's storyline is at least pretty true to the early seasons of the show (it was released near the end of the second season), which were based more around random humor and parodies of classic movies, rather than the topical jokes and political satire the show eventually became known for.
- The N64 version (which was the first version) of the game is fairly decent and passable in comparison to later released versions, and it would have been good enough to be on the Awesome Games Wiki back when it was still active too.
- The PC version has a better draw distance on modern PC's, which make the game much more playable.
- Multiplayer mode is pretty decent with large maps and weapons scattered around the levels and you must have some practice with weapons.
- The game can be funny at times, such as the characters quotes.
Reception
South Park was met with overall negative critical reception with the Windows and PlayStation versions, while the Nintendo 64 version received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. On aggregating review website GameRankings, the Nintendo 64 version received 67.11%, the PC version 51.72% and the PlayStation version 41.22%.
Legacy
A fan-made remake of the South Park game was developed by Marshmallow Studios, titled South Park 64 Remake (or South Park: Deeply Re-Impacted), which is similar to Nightdive Studios' Turok: Dinosaur Hunter|Turok and Shadow Man remasters, it added more characters, more weapons, new enemies, and new game modes, with a better arsenal, more enemies to kill, updated visuals, and gameplay, gamepad and keyboard support, with supporting many other resolutions and visual features such as widescreen support, but it was cancelled due to the game will no longer be worked or developed on.
Trivia
- South Park runs on the same engine as Turok 2: Seeds of Evil and shares the same controls as that game.
- There was going to be a Game Boy Color version, which was supposed to be a puzzle-platform game, but because South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't like the idea of putting an adult oriented game on a console marketed towards children, it was cancelled and later reworked into three other games, which are The New Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley, Mary Kate and Ashley: Get a Clue, and Maya the Bee and her Friends. In August 2018, the ROM image of the Game Boy Color version was leaked on the Internet.
- A spiritual sequel in the style of a sandbox action-adventure game was in development for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox, but was not finished. Little was known about the game until a build was found on an Xbox development kit, but only video footage of the beta build has been released to the public. The footage appears to showcase the PlayStation 2 version, due to the visual button displays used in the game. The cutscene from the game was even leaked on YouTube showing Cartman in a mental hospital.
- A port was being developed for Dreamcast, but it was cancelled for unknown reasons.
Videos
Comments
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