South Park: The Stick of Truth

South Park: The Stick of Truth is a turn-based role-playing video game, based on South Park, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The game was originally set to be published by THQ, however, their closure prompted Ubisoft to purchase the publishing rights. It was released on March 4, 2014 for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker oversaw development, wrote the script, and did voice-over work for the game.

Plot
The game starts with Cartman giving a speech about the war between the Kingdom of Kupa Keep (KKK) and The Elves for the Stick of Truth, a powerful artifact that gives whoever possesses it control of the universe.

Then, the player creates his character, who recently moved to South Park along with his parents. His parents moved to get away from something that happened to him at their old town. To keep his mind away from it, his parents send him out to the street to make new friends. As he walks along the street, the new kid comes across Butters fighting another kid dressed as an elf. The player scares the elf away and becomes friends with Butters, who lives next to him. Butters presents himself as a paladin and takes the new kid to Kupa Keep to meet the Wizard King, Eric Cartman.

Cartman is the ruler of the KKK, represented by humans, including Butters, Scott, Princess Kenny and Clyde. Cartman asks the new kid for his name and, despite any name the player enters, Cartman names the character "Douchebag". Douchebag then has to choose one of four classes: Fighter, Mage, Thief or Jew. After making his choice, Douchebag purchases a weapon and has his first fight against Clyde. After defeating him, Cartman reveals to Douchebag the Stick of Truth, an actual wood stick, which is what they are fighting for control of against the elves. As they talk, the elves attack Kupa Keep. With Douchebag's help, the elves are scared away, however, they manage to steal the stick and Cartman kicks Clyde out the game, as he was supposed to keep the Stick safe. Cartman then tasks Douchebag to bring his top three warriors back to the KKK: Tweek Tweak, Token Black and Craig Tucker.

Tweek comes after Douchebag and Butters run an errand for him (getting a package from a pair of meth heads stationed at Kenny's garage). Token goes after the boys manage to defeat the guard at the gate to his house. When they go to Craig's house, they find out that he is in detention at school. Cartman tasks Douchebag with rescuing him. Douchebag and Butters have to fight Mr. Mackey's ginger hall monitors and manage to break Craig out the school.

After the whole army is gathered, the KKK receives news of the Stick being in the hands of the Bard, a powerful level 10 elf that gets his powers from music. They launch an attack on the Inn of the Giggling Donkey and confront the Bard, Jimmy. As the two factions battle, Douchebag manages to get to Jimmy and defeats him. They retrieve the stick and return it to Kupa Keep. As the day ends, the kids go to their house to sleep. As Douchebag is sleeping, he is woken up by a blue light coming from his window. Visitors peek in the doorway, and he is abducted in the same way Cartman was in Cartman Gets an Anal Probe.

After the aliens abduct him, he realizes that the other people of the town are being anally probed. The aliens hook him up to a machine and begin probing him After breaking their anal probes, he meets Randy Marsh, who is beside him. After breaking free and being guided by Randy, the two are free and escape. However while escaping, you take out the pilots of the ship, which results in it crashing into South Park Mall, letting out a green toxin.

The government quickly covers up the crash site, under the guise of a new Taco Bell being constructed in the town.

After you wake up from the night, you go to leave your house when you're cut off by Cartman. He puts on the news and reveals that the elves cheated and took the stick at night. In preparation to starts a full war with the elves, you are ordered to recruit the Goth Kids, which requires passing a series of tests (looking Goth, being a nonconformist, and dancing like a Goth).

While trying to look Goth however you are trapped by the Elves and are summoned to their kingdom. Once arrived, you realize that Kyle is the King (and Stan is his second in command), and that Cartman is hiding the Stick of Truth, which is cheating. The player character then goes on a series of quests for the Elves, such as tearing down the KKK banners around the neighbourhood.

While proving himself a nonconformist by holding up an offensive sign at the PTA meeting, the player is stopped by Randy Marsh and coerced into finding out the truth behind the mysterious new Taco Bell. To aid them, Randy teaches the Sneaky Squeaker, a directed fart for distracting guards and sneaking past them.

The player infiltrates the "construction site" and discovers that the green toxin that has leaked into the sewer systems turns whatever it touches or whoever ingests it into Nazi Zombies. The government is planning to blow up all of South Park in an attempt to contain it, passing off the demolition as an earthquake. One of the agents decides to leave the recorder with the entire meeting on the table, unguarded, and the player takes it back to Randy.

As they leave, the Nazi Zombies escape and begin terrorizing the townsfolk. In true South Park form, few seem to notice or really mind.

Back at the PTA meeting, Randy and the other adults are horrified at learning that their town is going to be blown up. As Randy had not rewound far back enough, he assumes the ploy is to make space for a Mega-Taco Bell, and knows nothing about the Nazi Zombies. He takes a photo of the player holding up the Goth Kid's sign, and sends it to the player's phone as evidence.

Once the player has impressed the Goth Kids and earned their loyalty, you then have an option of recruiting the Goths for either Cartman (Kupa Keep) or Kyle (Elves). Whichever side you choose leads to an all-out assault on the school to retrieve the Stick of Truth, culminating in a one-on-one duel between either Kyle or Cartman. (The player has a choice of remaining loyal to their faction, or betraying them by fighting their own leader.)

Both faction leaders attempt to destroy the player by blowing them away (Kyle with a leaf blower, Cartman with his farts ignited with a lighter) but the player's exceptional control over their anus overpowers them.

Whichever faction wins, the leader orders the Goth Kids to check the inside of the other faction leader's desk--only the desks don't have insides, just tabletops. One of the Goths notice there is writing on one of the desks:

"Check my locker."

The boys figure out it's Clydes desk, and head to his locker. There they discover a laptop. Through it, Clyde reveals that he has stolen the Stick of Truth, and is raising an army of Nazi Zombies to kill the Earth. To make matters worse, he disbands the Human and Drow Elf kingdoms, and strips their leaders of their power.

The boys rush to Clyde's house and discover he has constructed a gigantic treehouse fortress in his backyard, and staffed it with an army of the remnants of the Human and Drow Elf Kingdoms, and the Goth Kids alongside the Nazi Zombies. Craig is also revealed to have joined, as Cartman no longer holds any authority over him.

The boys get ready to storm Clyde's keep when they discover to their horror that it is bedtime once more.

Gameplay
The game world is two-dimensional, but divergent paths will take the player into the foreground or background, allowing greater freedom of movement while preserving the two-dimensional feel of the show.

Plat-former elements will be absent from the game; jumping was trialed, but ultimately shelved early on in development.

Combat
The game will feature turn-based combat similar to the kind seen in the Paper Mario and Final Fantasy games. However, fighting also has a timing component to it, with well-timed successive inputs resulting in larger combos or more successful defending.

Weapons can also be augmented in a style similar to Final Fantasy VII, through different upgrades such as "fire", "electricity" or "poison."

There will also be a summoning system, allowing the player to summon other characters to help in battle, such as Jesus and Mr. Slave. Most battles will involve the player and his party against a group of enemies. Players will also control all members of their party so that they can remain in control throughout combat.

Fitting in with the theme of South Park, all weapons, armor, and gear will look as if they were created or found by children. Obsidian says one can expect to see weapons such as rolling pins and wooden swords, and armor such as football helmets and pasta strainers. The combat of the game is described as, in essence, "kids being kids" (i.e. "little bastards"), with lots of "juvenile violence" with "unsafe toys" - including flaming tennis balls, gardening implements and ninja stars.

Character Customization
The game starts off with the player creating his or her avatar with Eric Cartman. As the game is a role-playing game, there will be multiple ways to customize one's character. Obsidian claims that the level of customization outstrips that of any known online character generator.

One definitive aspect is what class the player chooses, which informs the approach the player takes to combat. There are four classes:
 * Fighter
 * Mage
 * Thief
 * Jew - A paladin/monk type class invented by Cartman. Described as being "high risk, high reward", the player becomes more powerful the closer they are to death.

Quests
Because the game aims to emulate the South Park style, typical role-playing quests wherein the player is sent to a cave to retrieve some lost artifact wouldn't be thematically appropriate. Quests will be more grounded within the South Park canon, with one example being retrieving Kung Pao chicken from City Wok for Cartman. The way to City Wok may be imagined into something else, but the emphasis remains on making the player feel as if they are in the South Park universe. In this capacity, Stone and Parker have taken a direct role in the direction of the game's plot and general atmosphere.

Smart Phone
A smart phone that is carried by the player character will act as the main menu for the game. The smart phone contains a Facebook-like app where the player can see the events going on as well as any active quests. It also tracks how many friends the player has made, and the player character's standing with different factions in the game, as well as messages received from other characters in the game.

Items
Currently disclosed items include "health and mana potions" such as sodas and speed-augmenting items such as Tweek's coffee. Weapons include hammers, bow and arrows, crutches, baseball bats, staffs, dodgeballs, golf clubs, swords, shovels, sickles, and etc. Items can be picked up from fallen enemies, bought, and taken from other things. Although few details have been released, it appears that there will be multiple collectables throughout South Park. The two that have been confirmed so far include dirty magazines and Chinpokomon dolls. Some never-before-seen Chinpokomon toys that were cut from the show will also be featured in the game.

Development
Stone and Parker have stated that they enjoy role-playing games and that they believe the genre is the best fit for bringing the South Park universe into the interactive medium. They also stated that the learning curve was greater than anything else they had done apart from The Book of Mormon.

The Obsidian team working on the game is relatively small, "maxing out" at around 50 people. Many artists also had to be hired from outside the company, since many of the artists already working at the studio preferred working in three dimensions, rather than in the two-dimensional environment of the game. Some other staff at the studio also didn't feel comfortable working on a South Park-related game due to its controversial subject matter.

Stone and Parker initiated talks with Obsidian Entertainment on their own behalf, as opposed to the more common route whereby a publisher acquires the license before contacting the developer. This presented the game developers the unusual opportunity of being able to collaborate directly with the license holders. Consequently, Stone and Parker, who are avid gamers themselves, possessed much more creative control in comparison to previous South Park video games, to which they were able to contribute very little.

Graphics
Previously released South Park games, such as South Park (1998) and South Park Rally (2000), featured three-dimensional graphics and gameplay that bore little resemblance to the show's distinctive two-dimensional cardboard cutout animation style. Stone and Parker, who have been openly critical of previous South Park games, decided early on in development that great emphasis had to be placed on emulating the show's aesthetic and feel were another game to be made.

To this end, the developers created two proof-of-concept pieces for Stone and Parker; a suite of the South Park gas station and an interactive version of Stan's house, featuring a highly customizable avatar and detailed interactions with the environment (as well as Randy, clad in his underwear, playing Guitar Hero). The creators were reportedly incredibly impressed at Obsidian's recreation of the show's every last detail, right down to the texture of the construction paper. Upon seeing the presentation, Matt Stone favorably commented, "It's like playing the show!"

Obsidian was granted access to 15 years' worth of Maya assets that were used in the making of the series; specific sequences (such as the show's distinctive walking animations) were reverse engineered and integrated into the game. The game runs on the Dungeon Siege III engine, which had to be heavily retrofitted to display the desired two-dimensional graphics.

Audio
Authentic sounds from the series, such as the signature guitar bumpers, will also be included in the game. The same composer who creates the show's score will also be providing incidental music for the game. Due to the large volume of new voice work needed for a role-playing game, dialogue animations will be generated procedurally, using the same mouth shapes as those used on the show.

Gameplay
The game is intended to accommodate fans of both South Park and role-playing games. Thus, the game world is not only in-depth, for hardcore gamer's willing to invest a lot of time into the game, but also includes many settings featured on the show, allowing South Park fans to visit the places that they've come to be familiar with.

Stone and Parker had a hand in shaping the geography of the game world, deciding where places visited on the show were actually situated in the town of South Park itself.

Narrative
In emulating the premise of the show, Obsidian also aimed to include the swearing, gratuitous violence and physical humor of South Park, but in a way that did not become stale after repeated invocations. The game also derives some of its humor by satirizing and parodying other games. However, Obsidian has stated that the game is much more than a simple satire on role-playing games, forming a cohesive narrative similar in scale to the South Park movie.

Preorder Bonus
Pre-ordering the game will get you the Ultimate Fellowship Pack, which comes with four exclusive costumes, each with a range of bonus abilities.
 * The Necromancer Sorcerer costume bestows bonus fire damage upon those who wear it.
 * Ranger Elf costume offers bonus weapon damage.
 * Rogue Assassin costume will net you bonus gold.
 * The Holy Defender costume will boost your defense.

The other pre-order bonus is Super Samurai Spaceman Pack, which comes with a different three costumes. You get the Ultimate Fellowship Pack when you pre order at selected retailers. You get the Super Samurai Spaceman Pack at other retailers. Pre-ordering on Ubishop gets you both.
 * The Superhero costume will buff you at the start of combat.
 * The Samurai costume buffs you when you defeat an enemy.
 * The Spaceman costume will give you an emergency shield.

When THQ was still in existence the preorder pack was the Good Times With Weapons pack based on the episode with the same name. It Included:
 * The Bulrog Chicken Attack, summon the devastating ninja powers of Bulrog and turn your feeble enemies into chickens!
 * Cartman's Kick-Ass Sai, the ultimate weapon of destruction, penetrate even the most evil of villains!
 * Samurai Costume. Show off your brute muscle with this bad-ass getup.

Xbox Exclusive Pre-order Bonus
It Should be noted that the Xbox Exclusive pre-order bonus is no longer available. Preordering the game for Xbox will include the "Good Times With Weapons" pack and the Xbox 360 exclusive "Mysterion Super Hero" pack based on the episode which includes:
 * Mysterion Special Attack: Harness the elusive power of Mysterion! South Park's protector unleashes a deadly combination of stealth and firepower—your enemies won't know what hit them!
 * Super Hero Costume: Suit-up as the next South Park Super Hero! It's the perfect disguise for fighting your mortal enemies and keeping South Park safe!
 * Dagger of Cthulhu: Slash the darkness with this diabolical switchblade! It's the same weapon used to stab and kill Mysterion in the twisted classic "Mysterion Rises". And now...the fate of the Cult of Cthulhu lies in your hands!

Characters
The following characters are seen on the cover for Game Informer: Characters who are seen in a trailer or on screenshots.