South Park Rally

It's not saying much, but South Park Rally is probably my favourite of the three crappy South Park games on the N64. It's disappointing, but perhaps not entirely terrible.

Much of the good is in the presentation; it's undoubtedly a South Park game, full of authentic sound effects, voice clips and music. The graphics are suitably crisp and clear, too, and the frame rate is really quite solid throughout.

The gameplay is where the game falls down, outside of the decent controls and handling. South Park Rally is one of many Mario Kart clones, but the devs have tried to do something a little different here. Rather than have you simply drive laps, each track has different objectives such as hitting different areas in sequence, and finding and holding an object. In this sense, the tracks are usually more sort of free-form environments or arenas than race courses. The concept just doesn't really work, and the track design is not great, making for a frustrating experience. Had it just cloned Mario Kart entirely, with simple, race-based gameplay, the game would likely have fared better.