South Park has been raising eyebrows for twenty years and boy have they come along way from making fart jokes. Now, don’t get me wrong, they still make lots of fart jokes, but on top of that, they rip into plenty of topical stuff too. If you ever get the chance to watch 6 Days to Air, a documentary about how quickly they turn around episodes of South Park, please do watch it:
But what happens when you give these guys a game to make?
It’s South Park but Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Game censors are a lot easier to please than TV censors. Sure, the TV censors have to worry about the writers annoying everyone with a voice assistant, but the game censors have to deal with jokes TV networks have nightmares about.
The toilet humour starts pretty early on as you make dancing game style bowel movements. Just a few minutes later, you’re being chased around by a priest with anal beads. Yup, there’s one of those sentences you never expect to see. This is all happening pretty early on in the game too and in true South Park style, The Fractured But Whole is continuously ramping it up.
I think what makes The Fractured But Whole so damn entertaining is the fact it’s a South Park episode. Because it’s animated, it can nail the graphics and they keep the shows real voice actors onboard too. There are callbacks galore to the TV show which will keep die-hard fan entertained while the raw comedy will make everyone laugh. This game is simply packed with entertainment.
What’s The Fractured But Whole All About?
Following on from The Stick of Truth, South Park’s previous game which involved killing Nazi cows, The Fractured But Whole had a lot to live up to. I’m going to mess you around. This is straight up one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. You start out on a literal character building journey. You’re one of the Coon and Friends, a group of superheroes headed up by The Coon. Spoiler alert, that’s Cartman.
Coon and Friends are locked in a superhero battle with Professor Chaos and his followers in a war which seems to resemble Marvel versus DC. I don’t wanna spoilt too much about the story, but sufficed to say, this is a 20-hour episode of even more adult comedy than you’ll normally see in the South Park TV show.
Gameplay
In its predecessor, the turn-based battle scenes eventually felt a little laboured. They just seemed to go on and on and you’d nearly dread them appearing. Fortunately, the game’s story was good enough to make you keep going. In the Fractured But Whole, the basics of the battle mechanics remain but it’s been vastly improved. While still turn-based, where you stand on the chessboard style grid can impact how many hits you take but also which attacks you can fight back with.
They’ve effectively taken the only negative from The Stick of Truth and fixed it, creating a simply fantastic game in its place.
I’m still playing through South Park: The Fractured But Whole and honestly feel like I’ve just reached the tip of the iceberg. Be sure to join our newsletter below as we’ll have a gameplay video coming soon.
Pick up South Park: The Fractured But Whole from GameStop and Amazon.co.uk
