South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! Xbox Live Arcade review

Introduction

Released in 2009 as a downloadable title on Xbox Live, ‘South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!’ is a tower defence strategy game based on the popular TV show. It is similar to games such as Plants vs. Zombies. Previous South Park games, ranging from a First Person Shooter to a racing game, have been received with mostly negative reviews. Is there finally a great South Park game or is this just as bad as previous instalments?

Story

Cartman, Kyle, Kenny and Stan return to defend South Park from a mysterious evil that is commanding enemies (6^th graders, zombies, jackovasaurs, etc.) to attack the town. The boys move around town trying the figure out who is behind the attacks. The story in South Park is about as absurd as the show, though, it isn’t all that great. It’s told in comic strips instead of cut-scenes. It feels more like an excuse to just bring in different characters from the show. There are some funny moments, but overall, the story isn’t all that special. I didn’t actually care about the characters. It might have been better if they had used cut scenes in the style of the show instead.

Gameplay

Gameplay in South Park consists of constructing different types of towers and placing them strategically with the goal of stopping the various enemies from getting from one side of the screen to the other. Players can also throw snowballs to slow down enemies. In addition, the different characters have different special abilities that can be activated once they have defeated enough enemies. Cartman can carpet bomb the area to damage all enemies currently on screen. Kyle allows all players to move faster and deal more damage for 7 seconds. Stan heals the town’s health, while Kenny makes enemies drop coins without having to be defeated, which can be used to buy and upgrade towers. I liked the gameplay. It was great fun frantically attempting strategically place towers and walls to slow down the oncoming swarm of enemies. However, at times the game felt like it was made for multiple players as it is so challenging on single player, due to the fact that in single player, you have to switch between all four characters, whereas in multiplayer each player has one character. The difference in difficulty is quite apparent once more players are in the game.

 There is also a challenge mode, with different levels separate from the campaign. They are nearly as challenging as the story, though other characters, such as Butters and Craig, can be used in this mode once they have been unlocked in story. This makes it a little bit easier, whereas campaign mode needs to be completed first to use other characters.

The controls in South Park feel great. Throwing snowballs is done by pressing the A button, placing towers is done by pressing the X button to open the inventory and using the D-PAD to select the tower required and pressing A to confirm the selection. A is then pressed to place the tower. This probably sounds a bit complicated but once you get used to it, it works. 

Graphics

The graphics in South Park are ok. They’re in 2D and retain the show’s style, so the characters look like cardboard cut-outs and move like they do in the show. The environments look good too. Anyone a fan of the show could easily recognise some of the locales from the show, such as Stark’s pond and Hell’s pass hospital as they look just like the show. The textures look fine as well. Overall the graphics are good for a downloadable title.

Sound

The sound in the game is good overall. The voice acting is stellar as the original voice actors from the show were used. Some of the dialogs between the characters sound hilarious. Other sound effects such as towers and snowballs hitting enemies sound great. There weren’t really many problems with the sound.

Conclusion

‘South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!’ is a great game. The gameplay is fun though really unforgiving, although the game is still addicting as I still want to try and complete it. This game might only be worth it for fans of South Park as the rewards for completing certain challenges are classics clips from South Park. Fans of only tower defence games might enjoy this, though it’s mainly only for fans of the show.

Summary

Good points: addicting gameplay, classic clips

Bad points: story, unforgiving difficulty