South Park RPG - Preview Roundup

Cartman gives you your first mission: Go to City Wok and get him some kung pao chicken. But this is interrupted when a rival gang of elves storms the backyard-castle. This is your introduction to battle.
It’s basically like Paper Mario: By adding a second timed button press when your moves are executing, you can do extra damage. Another timed button press when an enemy is attacking you will give you a “perfect block” where you take no damage. Even special attacks have timed events.
You can win items after battle; two that I noticed were a “Speed Potion” (a can of energy drink) and a “Revive Taco.” Weapons all have a Damage and Speed statistic, which you can upgrade — one particularly sluggish weapon was labeled as “Retard Slow.”

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I had the chance to check out upcoming role-playing game South Park: The Stick of Truth last night. It's ridiculous—think Paper Mario with hilarious South Park-style humor and what seems like it will be awesome RPG gameplay (as you might expect from developer Obsidian, the makers of Fallout: New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2, among other games).

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“To make the game feel like [you are in an episode of South Park], it has to look right,” Stone said when talking about The Stick of Truth from the stage of Microsoft’s presentation. “It has to look like an episode of South Park … which is pretty crappy.” Stone gave Obsidian a lot of props for getting the visuals up to Stone and Parker’s standards.
Parker and Stone also revealed that for the first time ever, they’ve mapped out the fictional town of South Park because of this title. “The funny part is, we were writing it, and saying, ‘Maybe you’re here and you go to Stan’s house to Kyle’s house,” Parker said. “And after fifteen years of doing the show, it was the first time that Matt and I were, like, ‘Where is Kyle’s house?’”

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Far from majestic, the wizard king was Cartman, and the kingdom was his back yard. We watched as the new kid was guided around by the big-boned star, and was introduced to different characters from the show who were scattered around the kingdom. Every character had the appropriate voice and tone, and visually, everything looked like it was straight out of the television show.
After giving the ten cent tour Cartman sat in a chair obviously inspired by Game of Throne's iron throne, and asked the new kid his name and class. Classes were typical RPG cliches like fighter and mage (it looks like they cut the "Jew" class talked about earlier in development), and the naming process pulled up the typical input screen.

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And so begins your adventure in South Park, in which, lead designer Matt MacLean tells us, "you have to make friends with the major characters of South Park." Wandering down the street, the first few kids playing near a tree are hardly welcoming. "Go away kid! You can't play with us." Butters, however, is much more accepting, and he brings you to the Wizard's -- a.k.a. Eric Cartman's -- house, where he makes his realtor joke. He takes you to the backyard where a whole fantasy kingdom has been set up, including the "armory" run by Clyde, the "stables" (i.e. the sandbox, where Cartman's cat is treating it like a litter box), a "Rock of Insanity," a "King's Tower" lookout point where you can see the whole town (mapped out in full for the first time ever), and the "Pool of Vision" (a kiddie pool).

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It doesnt look like we'll get any RPG-related surprises at E3, so expect a lot of repetition with the four major titles we haved to play with: Dishonored, Dawnguard, Divinity: Original Sin - and South Park: The Stick of Truth.

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it looks like they cut the "Jew" class talked about earlier in development

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DarNoor said:

I hope they don't go all "politically correct" on us. That's one thing South Park is not.

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Nameless one said:

If they where going for "politically correct" game I don't think they would chose south park.

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Drithius said:

Except Matt Stone and Trey Parker have, correct me if I'm wrong, the last say on their television show, but they need to answer to THQ when it comes to this game. I, for one, hope the game retains the show's edginess for Obsidian's sake, but it could go either way.

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