South Park (N64) Playthrough

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Published on August 30, 2023 9:08:22 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exRgI9M2ZY

Game:

South Park (1998)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 3:35:35

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A playthrough of Acclaim's 1998 license-based first-person shooter for the Nintendo 64, South Park.

South Park, the first game to be based on Comedy Central's hit animated series, is a 3D first-person shooter that loosely adapts elements from the show's first season into five episodic stages.

A fast approaching comet has begun raining down all sorts of unspeakable horrors on the town of South Park, and when a group of third grade boys learn about this otherworldly menace from the elementary school's cafeteria cook, they take it upon themselves to save the day.

Episode 1: Operation: Turkey Butt 2:40
Episode 2: A Clone of Your Own 43:10
Episode 3: Close Encounters of the Bovine Kind 1:02:43
Episode 4: Something Wicked This Way Clucks 2:06:26
Episode 5: Some Disassembly Required 2:46:34

South Park for the Nintendo 64 didn't review particularly well, but I seem to remember a lot of people raving about it. Critics called it out for its lack of substance and its pedestrian gameplay, but fans of the show generally loved it for how faithfully represented the source material.

At the time, I liked it. I wasn't enamored by the gameplay, but the idea of exploring South Park in 3D was novel and exciting, and the cutscenes, fully voiced by the show's cast, were a real treat to see from a cartridge-based console game. It was also hilariously profane at a time when swear words were still a rarity in console games, especially on Nintendo machines, and the split-screen deathmatch mode was a blast.

The appeal of its novelty and humor was key to the game's commercial success, and I wish the same could be said for the substandard gameplay.

I wasn't big on console FPSes in the 90s, especially on the N64. The controller was an abomination (a hot take, I know), and the experimental control schemes that developers came up with ruined a good many N64 games for me. Being that the game was built on the Turok 2 engine, South Park's controls were better than most, but I have always struggled with the way it aggressively auto-centers your view when using the analog stick. It wrestles you for control every time you try to aim off-center, and it's incredibly frustrating trying to keep the crosshair steady for a distance shot with the camera constantly wobbling up and down. The controls didn't feel great in 1998, but in 2023, they're not just baking brownies: this shit has been burnt to cinders.

The graphics are fine by N64 standards. The show's flat shapes and simple character designs translated nicely to the N64 hardware and the aesthetic is spot-on, but the game's look is marred by the super short draw distances, the heavy layer of fog used to disguise pop-in, and the rough framerate in the later stages. If you're using the expansion pak, setting the graphics to low-res like I did here will boost the framerate a little and get rid of the interlacing artifacts.

The sound is also fine, but the short music loops are annoying and the in-game voice clips and the turkey gobbles are only funny the first hundred-or-so times that you hear them.

(Also, keep in mind that everything I'm saying here only applies to the original N64 game. It's one of those games that truly demonstrates how much more power the N64 had under its hood than the PlayStation. Appaloosa's PS1 port was unbelievably terrible.)

Like the show, the South Park game was a clear product of its time and should probably be left there, but going through it again for this playthrough was an entertaining enough throwback to waste an afternoon on.

What do you guys think? Do you love it? Hate it? Or, like me, did you like it 25 years ago but nowadays feel that it has gone too far past its sell by date?

(Sorry about the lack of music during the UFO stage! It got tagged by the YT copyright scan.)
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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