South Park (Video Game)

South Park
Developer(s)	N64/PC: Iguana Entertainment PS1: Appaloosa Interactive
Publisher(s)	Acclaim Entertainment Gradiente
Director(s)	Jeff Everett Neill Glancy
Genre(s)	First Person Shooter
Rating(s)	ESRB: M (Mature)
Platforms
Nintendo 64	December 12, 1998
Playstation 1	September 30, 1999
Microsoft Windows	March 9, 1999
GameBoy Color	Cancelled (more info)

This article is about the 1998 video game. For the most recent video game, see South Park: The Stick of Truth.

South Park is a first-person shooter video game based on the first few seasons of South Park, mostly taking inspiration from the episodes "Starvin' Marvin", "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig" and "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe". The game is powered by the Turok 2 game engine and was released in 1998 by Acclaim for the PC, Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation. A Game Boy Color version was in development, but was canceled soon after.

The Brazilian version of the N64 game was published by Gradiente, which translated the game into Portuguese. On January 13, 1999, Acclaim announced a sequel to South Park for release in 2000 on N64, though no further information was given and it was never released.

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.

Operation: Turkey Butt

Cartman about to cross the finish line of the level.

Mutant Turkeys have returned and are now invading South Park, the boys must head through a Renaissance Fair until they reach Chef's Love Shack. Chef then tells them of Tank Turkeys and how they birth more Mutant Turkeys, he then tells them to head through the tunnels and up the mountain until they reach his other love shack where Chef tells them of their sinister nest made throughout the complex tunnels of the Volcano after it exploded. The Boys scale the nest and discover the Mother Turkey, after distressing it to leave the boys follow and destroy the mother turkey before it can reach town, they then return home and eat Thanksgiving dinner outside the school.    

A Clone of Your Own

Chef informs the boys of a mysterious green glow near the Warehouse Docks and asks them to investigate, they then discover that Big-headed mutants have been the source of the glow and that there are several clones of residents from the town, the boys then find Chef outside the small warehouse and discuss the problem, the boys then resolve to destroy the clones in the warehouses, after destroying the clones, they reach the last warehouse and see the clones have been falling down from the second floor of the warehouse, they then discover a strange machine and destroy it which destroys the entire warehouse. Chef then informs the boys the next day that the true source of the clones has been coming from an art museum in town, the boys then fight their way and discover the grotesque Mother Clone Blob,  then they destroy it and rejoice at the dead clone monster.

Close Encounters of a Bovine Kind

The aliens have returned to South Park and are now wrecking havoc, the boys travel the open fields and discover that aggressive cows and flying spaceships are all over the mountains, then destroy them and head back to South Park. The boys talk to Chef and must head out to the distant Craterville, where alien activity is highly prominent, the boys head there and discover the ville is overrun with aliens, they then find the mother-ship and must take down several aliens until they find the key. They then traverse the inner mother-ship and defeat several stronger aliens along the way, they then discover the violent electrical core and destroy it.

Something Wicked This Way Clunks

Robotic Televisions have begun appearing in South Park and Chef informs the boys that the Seismic Center has been picking up several disturbing signals, the boys head to the center and discover several telebots destroying it. The boys traverse several rocky grounds to get to Ned Gerblansky & Jimbo Kern's Militia Camp, which has been overrun by the telebots, then discover Ned & Jimbo have been captured and imprisoned in a cliffside robot factory, they navigate the treacherous halls of the factory and come into a boss battle with the head robot (powered by Mr. Hat) they destroy the robots and rescue Ned & Jimbo, who are thankful for it, the head of a robot falls on Kenny McCormick and squishes him.

Some Disassembly Required

The comet's visit to South Park is coming to an end tonight, but Chef tells the boys that there is one last problem, Killer Toys are on the loose and rampaging the streets, the boys then fight their way down to the Toy Store Parking Lot, where more toys are slowly bred by Jack-in-the-boxes, then destroy the Toy Tanks and enter the Toy Store where several toys are lurking through its shelves, the boys destroy the Tanks guarding the doors to the next rooms. They then come face to face with the final boss: The Ultra Mega Man, the boys put up a valiant effort and destroy the amazing toy boss.

Epilogue

Eric Cartman is playing with his toys celebrating himself being so heroic and then tells Mr. Kitty to go away from being a dildo, Chef then congratulates the boys on defeating the evil that plagued the town, a safe then falls out of nowhere and squishes Kenny, Chef then exclaims "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!", Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski begin discuss who exactly "They" are...

The credits then roll. In the N64 Version, the South Park versions of the cast and crew appear as a backdrop. In the PC version, it shows the Flyby of the First Level with the Credits Text Overlaying the Level.

Gameplay

Cartman meets an innocent Bear in the snow fields.

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 Playing the N64 Version) 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, in one instance, Officer Barbrady can be found in the Toy Store parking lot and is killable.

A screenshot of the N64 version of the game.

Weapons

• Snowball
• Dodgeball
• Terrance & Phillip dolls
• Sniper Chicken
• Sponge dart gun
• Warpo ray
• Alien device
• Cow-Launcher

Multiplayer Mode

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.

The players have a choice of several characters from the show. The boys will always be default to the selection. To unlock more characters the player must play through the entire Story Mode to discover codes which unlock the characters. There are several stages to choose from, some basic while others are high priority death traps, there also also choices of game-styles to choose.

Additionally, some weapons found in the Story Mode can be successfully used only in Multiplayer whereas it was useless in Story Mode, these include: Cow Launcher (A successful hit K.Os the player with a hilarious shot of the Cow's anus), Warpo Ray's 3rd function (Causes the player to turn into an animal) and the Alien Dancing Gizmo (Causes the player to act out the song Cartman sang in the original episode of the show).

Development

The game was developed by Iguana Entertainment, best known for the Nintendo 64 game Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and its three sequels. It was developed concurrently with Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, and shared the same game engine and some of the development staff. The game's composer, Darren Mitchell later bemoaned it as being "not a fun project" in part due to the Nintendo 64 being difficult to work with, and also because of the extremely fast development time forced on the development team by publishers Acclaim, who wanted the game released in time for Christmas 1998.

Cancelled GameBoy Version

The only screenshot of the GBC version of the game in Nintendo Power.

A version of the game was also in development for the Nintendo GameBoy Color by Acclaim Entertainment. However, it was cancelled by Matt Stone and Trey Parker due to demographic incompatibilities between Nintendo's handheld and the show. The one prototype version of the game is said to belong to Matt and Trey. The game's source code and frameworks were reused in other GameBoy games later in the year.

Quotes

Stan Marsh

• "Whoa dude! I'm good!"
• "Somebody's making brownies!"
• "Dude this is great!"
• "Sick dude, that smells like pee!"
• "Yellow snow sucks!"
• "Next time you hit me with that mother-f--king thing, I'm gonna kick your ass!"
• "Yeah, your head may be big, but I can still kick your ass!"
• "Hey, it's my turn to kick their asses!"
• "Bitchin!"
• "Take that evil dolly!"
• "Oh Yeah? Visit This!"
• "Clone that! Dumbass!"
• "Thought you guys are unbreakable huh?"
• "Die Evil Turkeys DIE!"
• "I'm gonna Puke!"

Kyle Broflovski

• "Out of my way dumb-dumb, I'm gonna kick your butt!"
• "I'll get you for that!"
• "Hey, what's happening?!"
• "Go back to your home planet!"
• "Die evil robots! Die!"
• "Stupid Cow!"
• "Take that! AND THAT!"
• "Hey! You Guys Suck S--t!"
• "Hey Clone! Your shoelaces are untied."
• "This is just like cow-tipping!"
• "Kick Ass!"
• "Man these clones are so dumb!"
• "Die Evil Turkeys!"

Eric Cartman

• "My mom always told me I was cool."
• "Ah, kickass!"
• "I was kind of like Michael Jackson, there"
• "Eh, I was kind of like Boy George, there."
• "I don't like you guys, anymore."
• "You dirty tree-hugging hippies!"
• "That's for sticking stuff in my ass!"
• "Back and to the left."
• "Screw you guys, I'm going home."
• "My Mom will cook you guys for breakfast!"
• "Kickass!"
• "You got any Cheesy Poofs?"
• "You will respect my authoritah!!
• "I... Am.... So.... PISSED!!!
• "Hey! Hamburger!"
• "Hey Guys these Clones are dizzy!"
• "You ass f---er!"
• "Oh look at all the lovely toys!"
• "Kickass!"
• "Stupid Clone!"
• "Oh gross! you sick bastard!"
• "Die Evil Turkeys DIE!!!"

Terrance

• "Ow! I Think I Farted!!"
• "Oh Think I'm Gonna Fart!"
• "Ow! You Hit me in the Fart Bone!"
• "FART!!!!"
• "Ooooo! Ha Ha Ha!"
• "I Win! Now I Get to fart on your head!"
• "Oh, I'm so mad! I think I could fart! Ha Ha Ha!"
• "Owie!"
• "Cut It Out!"
• "I'm gonna fart on you for that!"

Phillip

• "Hey!" (Fart)
• "I fart on your grave!"
• "Come over here, So I can fart on you!"
• "Son of a fart!"
• "Yeow!!"
• "I'm gonna fart on your mouth for that!"
• "Oh, I'm so angry I could fart!"
• "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you.... (Farts)
• "I win! Now I can fart on your nose!"

Officer Barbrady

• "Move along people nothing to see here!"
• "Okay! time for police brutality!"
• "Assault a police officer will you?!"
• "Okay! you're going to Jail!"

Mr. Garrison

• "Ow! YOU HIT MR. HAT!!! NOW YOU'RE IN FOR IT!!!"
• "I'm gonna teach you a lesson in pain"
• "YOU LITTLE BASTARD! YOU GO TO HELL! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!!!!!"
• "Stop that!"
• "Eh! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!!!!!"
• "I'm gonna spank you like a little red-headed step-child!"
• "Mr. Hat, will you kick their asses?"
• "Who knows what to turn payback mean?"
• "You've angered Mr. Hat! and you will suffer terribly for it!"
• "I win, Everyone else report to detention."
• "What a victory, Mr. Hat. Yes, Mr. Garrison."

Mr. Mackey

• "Uh Hitting is Bad"
• "Hey, I told you not to do that. mmkay?"
• "HEY!!! mmkay?"
• "YEOW! mmkay?"
• "mmkay so we learned that I am the best. mmkay?"
• "Stop That! mmkay?"
• "What do we call people who hit? Bad people. mmkay?"
• "Are you on drugs? Drugs are bad. mmkay?"
• "Don't make me kick your ass. mmkay?"

Reception

Upon release, the PC and PS1 versions of South Park were received poorly by critics. GameRankings has only 41.22% as the average score for the PlayStation version and the PC version has the average score 51.72%. GameSpot gave the PlayStation version a 1.4, stating that "South Park is definitely one of those games that is bound to come up when you start thinking about the worst game you've ever played." IGN called the PlayStation version "frustrating" due to poor graphics, repetition of the voice acting, and lack of play value for the head-to-head mode. GameSpot stated in the PC version that "A good license and good graphics aren't enough". The voice acting, done by the original voice actors, was criticized for being repetitive, isolated, and old. The weapons of the game were also criticized for being unprofessional.

Despite the negative reception from both versions, the Nintendo 64 version was praised for its 3D graphics and nice storyline, with IGN calling the game "just as funny as the Comedy Central series". GameSpot stated in the Nintendo 64 version that the level design "it's really not very good on its own, but given the license, it at least makes sense".

On the DVD commentary for the episode "Starvin' Marvin", Trey Parker called it the "crappiest video game", mostly because of the first level where you repetitively shoot hordes of turkeys. Like most of the South Park merchandise released at the time, Parker also mentions that he was "bummed out" about it. Because of this, Trey and Matt haven't agreed to the development of many videos games since.

Gallery

Cover art for the cancelled GameBoy Color release.