Written by: Alex

 

 

 

The first series of South Park hit while I was in high school. After watching the first two seasons I headed to university and proceeded to not watch it for ten years (four years of university, six years in Japan) then early last year I discovered the South Park Studios website.

 

What ensued was an inhuman marathon of every series up to date. It wasn’t that I had some long held desire to watch them but having started I couldn’t stop. The show contains a wit and satire delivered with a level of intelligence hidden under a mask of the idiotic.

 

Thus I came to "South Park Let’s Go Tower Defence Play!" (SP:LGTD), excited to see how much of that humour developers Doublesix had managed to bring to the game.

 

 

SP:LGTD takes a very nostalgic view of the series. The cartoons style easily translates to a game, and though cut-scenes come in the form of static comic stills rather than being animated they are nicely stylised to add a faux drama to the story. The shows wit is delivered in the form of quotes and references taken from numerous episodes. I may not be as funny as a single cohesive episode but it works well as fan service and defiantly kept me an my friends entertained as we recalled past show.

 

 

The strength of this nostalgia is not lost on the developer as the further capitalized on it with the inclusion unlockable clips which for in game achievements. Unfortunately as the difficulty increases you can often find yourself replaying levels repeatedly the repetition of one-liners does start to grate somewhat, though not any more significantly than any other strategy game that relies on audio cues.

 

The story itself is really only in place to provide a bizarre motivation to move the cast of boys (Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny) from one familiar location to the next, but is littered with titbits to raise a smile.

 

 

As its name suggests SP:LGTD is a tower defences game, you erect defences and wait for hordes of enemies to attack. Towers vary in ability and cost, ensuring you use the resources (money and space) wisely to guarantee success.

 

Unlike similar games however South Park takes an Arcady, approach to the tower placement by implementing a real time element by making you play as one of the boys and not a god like character.

 

 

By hitting the right bumper button you can jump from boy to the next. When left idle the boys act as an additional tower, throwing snowballs at any of the passing aggressors while the controlled characters (up to four in co-op) can move freely, building additional towers and collecting money.

 

 

Each boy has different abilities and special move, making not only strategically placement of towers important, but also which boy you choose to control and when to unleash their power.

 

Special moves charge by hitting the opposition with snowballs, and timing when to release a power often proves vital. For example, Kenny's move results in any enemies dropping coins, advantageous to have early on, as there is no bad time to build towers. Cartman's special power however is a fireball.

 

While this is always useful, strategically it is far better to use this towards the end of a round as enemies become more powerful and need softening up for the towers to really be effective.