South Park: The Stick of Truth

This is a surprisingly delightful, long, and non-linear RPG that rewards exploration and experimentation, has lots of worthwhile and fun side-quests and achievements, all wrapped around an excellent story that is full of unexpected twists.

It is also a ridiculously funny South Park episode, which is centered around a parody of the fantasy RPG genre. Note, though, that you won't find any new components: all the characters, gags, songs, and themes have already been used and abused to death on the TV show. I guess it's inevitable that a TV show that has been running for so long has to get so self-referential. But, well, some things are always funny. Like farts.

To fully enjoy this game, you MUST play it with a gamepad/controller, as it makes ingenious use of its physicality and vibrations. I played with an Xbox-compatible one, which was recognized without any configuration.

I say "surprising" because I was expecting a casual gaming experience with the South Park story at its center. But it's actually a very sophisticated game, with loads of cool loot you can find, sell, and buy, worthwhile abilities and spells to upgrade to, and a diverse set of companions to assist you in battle. And it's not too easy, at least on the default difficulty level. Note, though, that if you're a serious RPG player, you'll probably indeed find it easy: as soon as you level up enough and get good gear, somewhere in the middle of the game, combat because boring and repetitive, because you've already figured out how to win in every situation. I found a combination that could win almost every battle in two rounds. No problem, just increase the difficulty level, which you can do anytime during the game.

I had so much fun with this. :) I don't see much point in a sequel (every single South Park theme I can think of was shamelessly shoved into this game), but I hope this team of devs and creative folk get together on a similar project in the future. Kudos to everyone involved, it's a triumph, and one of my favorite gaming experiences of 2014!