South Park

South Park was an instant success when it premiered on Comedy Central in 1997, and with this success came the merchandising blitz, and as part of this wave of south park merchandise came South Park games. This is the first South Park game and it is very annoying. It is an FPS where your goal is to get to the end of the level and take out all the "tanks " in the level, tanks being large enemies which spawn your basic enemies. If you don't beat them all you have to play a penalty round where you have to defeat all the tanks you didn't get before they destroy the town. Actually this penalty round is not too hard and in fact it may be easier to let a few tanks escape since when you have to face them in the penalty round they do not spawn the smaller enemies. Combat in this game is not that exciting. What happens is a horde of enemies type will come after you in waves and you pick them off as they come after you. I do like the choice of weapons, which are all appropriate for out kid protagonists. Your basic weapon is a snowball, but you can also get dodge balls, a nerf gun, a chicken which shoots eggs, etc. Several of the levels have you actually going through the town South Park and it looks pretty good although you can't enter any of the buildings. However there is nobody on the city streets so South Park feels lifeless. Add in the omnipresent fog to cover the draw distance and it feels like you're in a cartoon version of Silent Hill, especially in the final chapter where there you are hounded by possessed toys that sound just like the radio in Silent Hill 1. In the town this fog isn't too bad, but several of the levels take place in the snowy hills outside South Park, so you end up with white fog on top of white snow; it is disorienting. The levels themselves are pretty bland, you go from snowy fields, to dark tunnels, to the same city square over and over. There are a few interior levels, like a spaceship and a toy shop, but this isn't enough. On top of that the levels just drag on and on some of them going on for 15 minutes, all without any checkpoints, so if you die you have to start all the way at the beginning.