"Rated M" Month: South Park: The Stick of Truth (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Once more, a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it!

Gain new allies

Goth kids doing what they do best.
That is, nothing, mope, and pray for death.

Yes, a weird thing happened that night, but for South Park that’s nothing. At the site of the UFO crash, a government building has been set up and the media is reporting the construction of a new… er… Taco Bell. Yeah, my ass! Due to the commotion, the school is closed. Then, as if shit couldn’t get worse, Cartman walks in uninvited to say that the Stick of Truth is gone, and that once again, the elves must’ve taken it! He tasks the New Kid with recruiting a new faction to the Humans – specifically, the Goth kids who spend their time moping and smoking in the school’s backyard.

Once again, a new ability (the probe in the Kid’s ass, allowing him to teleport over short distances around machines it can interface with) opens new paths, so you can explore South Park and find new stuff. There’s a lot that I didn’t cover in Part 1, and I figured that I would discuss a part of combat that I didn’t mention yet: The summons. Each found while visiting the town and completing quests, each summon can be brought during a battle and immediately end the encounter. There are two caveats: You can use each summon only once per day, and never against a boss. There are four of these.

He's shooting at kids? Jesus Christ!
...sorry, Mr. Christ.

Jesus: Unlocked at the end of the “Finding Jesus” quest, where you play hide and seek with the holy figure in what I think is one of the most wholesome things this franchise has ever done. He will shoot a machine gun at all the enemies till they’ve died or fled. Jesus is the best.

Mr. Kim: The owner of Shitty- I mean, City Wok will happily help you with his Chinese War Dance, once you’ve helped him defeat the Mongolians that have taken over his restaurant and the next-door Tower of Peace, forcing him to sell crappy “Mongolian Beef”.

....The less I say about this one the better.

Mr. Hankey: The talking literal piece of shit in a Christmas hat is found in the sewers, and requests that you find all of his kids, lost or trapped all over the sewers area. For your troubles, you get friended by the entire shit family on social media, as well as the ability to summon Mr. Hankey, who brings forth a literal storm of feces onto the enemies. Man, the number of fucked-up things this game is making me write about…

Mister Slave: Last but not least, for retrieving a package for him, we unlock a whip to summon Mister Slave in battle. His attack… er… is, well… no matter whether the enemy is a wolf, an adult, a monster or even a goddamn child, he… he…

…I’d rather not say it. But if you know the character, then you fucking KNOW what he does. Fuck’s sake, the gay community does NOT need jokes like this!

Oh, right, while we’re at it – a big deal is made of making friends on social media, and there’s an in-game reason for that: At every few friends made, you unlock a new perk that will help in combat. So, the more friends you make, the more powerful you become! How’s that for the power of friendship?

Nonconformist

Anyway, back to our main program. The Goths will join, but only if the New Kid dresses as a goth and brings them dark roast coffee and smokes. The smokes are stolen from sixth graders by Jimbo’s gun shop and the clothes are bought from a hobo near the U-Stor-It. The roast is purchased at Tweek Bros. Coffee…

I'm sorry, I became buddies with Butters!

And then Douchebag is jumped by elves, who knock him out and take him to the elves’ base, in Kyle Broflovski’s backyard. There's also Jimmy the bard and Stan the fighter. I was hoping we’d see the rest of the main gang earlier. Kyle claims that Cartman is the one hiding the Stick to fuel the feud between humans and elves, and… yeah, I can believe it. We ARE talking about a kid who ground two parents into a curry and fed them to their teenage son.

That bloody thing being thrown at the New
Kid? Yep, it's exactly what you think it is.

You’re given the option to rally the Goths to the Elves instead, and are given Jimmy and Stan as allies to use in battle. Jimmy is support, buffing your team and debuffing the enemies, while Stan is a basic ranger/fighter type of character. Both have their own quests: With Stan, you fight the She-Ogre (actually Stan’s sister Shelley, who uses a wide array of menstrual blood-based attacks… yep). You can go with Jimmy to get a new magic flute at the ranch North of town, and that involves fighting some weird green cows that yell in German. Back at the school, Douchebag dresses in Goth gear...

PTA Problems

So... does that make Randy some sort of
martial Farts teacher then? ...eh? ...eh?

…But that’s not enough! The Goths now want the player to crash the PTA meeting about what happened the previous night, put up a “Fuck the conformists” sign, and take a picture. So we head over to the community center. Predictably, the adults have bought the claims that it’s a new Taco Bell being built. Only Randy, contrary to his usual record-breaking stupidity, thinks that something shadier is going on. He tasks the New Kid with finding more, after which he’ll help with the sign and picture. He even teaches a new fart, the Sneaky Squeaker, which allows us to send the sound and smell of our farts elsewhere to distract people.

Douchebag uses this to sneak into the facility, even using it to solve puzzles in order to kill heavily-armed guards if necessary. “I thought I heard a fart over there, or maybe it was Nicki Minaj’s latest single!” (Actual joke from the game, by the way.) “Let me check here over that puddle with live wires dipping into it, with the machine just behind that truck where children could be hiding to turn it on…” BZAAAAP.

Quick, somebody get all these zombies together
for a special representation of that musical
from Mel Brooks' The Producers!

Sneaking in, we quickly find a meeting held by Big Bad Government Guy (BBGG) and several agents, who report on the situation. The toxic alien waste, when it comes into contact with organic Earth material, turns them into… Nazi zombies. Okay, the zombie part I’m cool with, alien goo doing that shit? Sure, why not. Nazis, though? I don’t know how the fuck that can happen. It’s now the third game in a row that I review involving Nazis in some way. Hey, I’m always up for killing more of those. We even see someone get infected: He does the salute, magically sprouts an armband with the swastika, and even his words turns into excerpts from Hitler’s speeches. That game must not have been received too warmly in Germany, what with their strong anti-Nazism laws… Laws that all of the countries on the American continent should also adopt, because we should have done that a long fucking time ago.

Oh good, they're ALL quoting the angry
hateful single-ball man.
(Look it up, Hitler had only one testicle.)

The BBGG decides that it’s best to obliterate all of South Park rather than risk letting the infection spread too far. After the agents leave, Douchebag steals the meeting’s recording… but the few captured Nazi zombies go free, forcing the kids to fight for their lives. Kicking a fucking Nazi in the balls? That hits the sweet spot, I feel accomplished as a human being. From this point on, there can be Nazi zombies on random screens on the town, keeping a player on their toes.

Douchebag returns to the community center, where he plays the recording, to the shock of the parents present – who now believe that Taco Bell wants to blow up South Park so they can build a city-sized restaurant. With this, Randy thanks the Kid by letting him complete the Goths’ quest, and we can report to them and recruit them to our side.

…But which side is that? We have reasonable doubt over who has the Stick; either the Elves did take it, or Cartman hid it in his school desk to have an excuse to antagonize Stan and Kyle. And from the show, we know how much of an asshole Cartman is. So, how do the developers make this a difficult choice? I love what they did here. Cartman has been nothing but friendly to the New Kid up to that point, almost uncharacteristically so; but, more importantly, Butters, the nicest kid, is with Cartman…

…I’m so sorry Butters, you’re a sweet kid, but I’m not siding with Cartman. (However, you can, and the next quest changes based on which faction you choose.)

ManBearPig

Just because it’s worth talking about: In this side-quest, you’re tasked by Al Gore with setting up three ManBearPig sensors around town and a defibrillator in the sewers. Once you do, Al Gore considers you his best friend on Facebook, so he starts spamming your feed with pointless shit – forcing you to unfriend him... by beating the crap out of him. He starts to act like you’re ManBearPig and attacks with two bodyguards and his boring exposé on climate change, guaranteed to put your team to sleep. I mentioned before that enemies scale with your level; well, Al Gore is a tough boss no matter the situation, partly because of his bodyguards, but fighting him late enough will make him insanely hard to defeat. Maybe harder than anything else in the game.

ManBearPig? More like GoreBearPig.
He ain't gonna get more support doing this.

The questline is not over, though, as a final message has Al Gore claim that ManBear Pig (actually him in a complex armored disguise) is attacking the church. This fight is a little easier, but Gore has better defenses against most of your special moves – he wears a mask to protect him from your fart-based attacks, can wear a helmet to protect himself, and heals from status ailments. Anyway, once Gore is down this time, it’s for good.

Man, with the reveal in newer seasons of the show that ManBearPig IS real, IS causing climate disturbances, and IS a monster straight from the pits of Hell, this entire sequence of jokes reads different.

Attack the School

Nice set-up, would be a shame if someone blew
it up with a fart...

Choosing a faction means you lose your allies from the other faction (as Butters and Kenny are from Kupa Keep, Jimmy and Stan from the Drow Elves). The path is still overall similar. Your faction attacks the school, which the opposing group has taken over. A massive battle involving most of the boys from South Park ensues; Douchebag sneaks in through the kitchen, then makes his way through the halls, destroying barricades and other shit with his farts. You will need every ability here, and there’s a greater focus on puzzle-solving to navigate the maze and avoid some fights. Your friends from the other team will attempt to dissuade the New Kid.

I can electrocute Nazis? Yes please.

Even then, this is all a moot point, as the LARP session continues in the school’s basement, and we find out that the nasty alien goo is now leaking out of the sewers, turning even the ginger hall monitors into Nazi zombies. …This probably makes the Top 10 of the weirdest sentences I ever wrote for this blog. It’s the point where the kids start seeing the real threat seep into their game of make-believe. Or, in short: Shit got real. Yet, the session continues as normal.

Yeah, I haven't really studied fart physics,
but I doubt that's how it works.

Now comes a first boss fight against another ally: Butters if you betrayed the humans, or Stan if you stayed with them. You mean I have to beat up Butters too? Aw, I feel bad now… Kicking Cartman’s ass afterwards better be worth it. Speaking of, that comes soon afterwards, in a clash for the ages (with the game giving you another option to change sides). Cartman lights up a Dragonshout fart of his own and the New Kid has to fart back to repel the flames. If you fight Kyle instead, he achieves the same effect by using a leaf blower. The end result is the same: You have to mash a key or button to win, and to be honest, I kinda hate all the attacks and sequences that require mashing in this game.

After the leader of the opposing faction is defeated, everyone realizes that neither could have hidden the Stick of Truth in their desk; they’re tabletops. One of them, however, leads them to Clyde’s locker, where he left a laptop with a video in which he has the Stick… and huge barrels of the alien goo. The gang hurries to Clyde’s backyard, where now stands a gigantic treehouse built like a castle, occupied by Clyde, the Vamps, and Craig. Well, shit.

...Okay, that's impressive. We are so fucked.

However, it’s too late to attack – everyone has to go home for the night.

Defeat the Underpants Gnomes

….the fuck kind of continuation is that?

Thanks, I know. I saw the treehouse.
Literally the picture just before this one.

Anyway, Douchebag goes home to sleep, but is awoken in the middle of the night by the Underpants Gnomes, who sing as they come in through the mouse hole to steal his briefs. The Gnomes are outmatched in the ensuing fight, and thus have their Warlock shrink him down to their size. In spite of that, they’re defeated again and flee, with Douchebag chasing after them into the wall space, where he must fight rats.

The chase takes our character to his parents’ room, where his mom and dad discuss the nebulous reasons for their moving to South Park before getting down to have loud, moany sex. The primal scene serves as the backdrop for the Kid’s next fight with the Gnomes, too similar to the previous one to really matter otherwise. But hey, gotta show more of that crudely-drawn porn.

Is the censoring necessary?
I dunno... I'm playing it safe.

I am so, so sorry for ending the article
with this image.

There’s just one problem: Douchebag is still tiny. The only solution is to fight the Warlock, which first involves chasing him all the way onto the bed the parents are currently rutting on. The fight takes place underneath the two-backed beast, hanging tits and moving flesh and all. To his credit, the Warlock is a tough boss. He’s not the only threat, though; as the fight goes, on some turns, both combatants will have to dodge the dad’s set of swinging testicles. I… Holy fuck, this isn’t even the 10th weirdest thing I wrote for this review. Was that necessary? For Trey and Parker, the answer to that is likely “Yes, and we haven’t gone far enough! It should have been the dick you avoid during an accidental pullout from the dad!” You know they could’ve done it, too. After the Mister Slave summon, it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit.

Anyway, the New Kid beats up the Warlock and, for his troubles, gets a pouch of Gnome Dust allowing him to shrink and grow back at will. Back to his room, after returning to his normal size, he goes to bed, probably traumatized by the last two days. Oh, don’t worry… shit can always get worse…

As we’ll see in Part 3.