Review: (XBLA) South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!

Yes, it is a very long title.

Posted 3 years ago By - Marko Djordjevic

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I was in High School when South Park started broadcasting. It was really funny but back then I never thought it would last very long. Well, after more than a decade on television, an Academy Award nominated film and so much more, the series is still giving people stuff to talk about. While the franchise has had success in other mediums, the only one it hasn’t is in videogames. South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! is the first game in nearly a decade to feature the mountain-town and surprisingly offers a good Tower Defense game but an absolutely fantastic title for South Park fans.

Gameplay

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! is the series’ take on the over-crowded Tower Defense genre. It would seem weird for the series to go this route considering the already large selection of games available, but it takes what it can from the genre and uses the South Park license with surprising results.

Unlike most Tower Defense titles, South Park’s take on it offers you the ability to play alone or with 3 other people using various South Park characters. Playing alone will put you in the role of all four characters on the screen, juggling each one as you build structures and attack the waves of enemies. When you play with others, each takes the role of a specific character and you work together to defeat the opposition.

Each of the four is capable of building structures, attacking and each has their own special ability that becomes accessible after doing a certain amount of damage and work on the field. Their special abilities are very different and can be quite beneficial at key points. For example, Kenny’s special ability will spawn extra cash to collect while Cartman will go psychotic and the screen will engulf in flames doing significant damage; even the un-lockable characters have their own special abilities to use.

Missions take place in different areas around the town of South Park, but snow is key to each level. You will only be able to build on snow, so this aspect plays heavily in your strategy. Not every level is completely snow covered, but it’s up to you use what you have to the best of your ability in order to succeed. In those levels that are mostly snow covered, you can use it to influence the movements of enemies. You can build snow-walls or structures to block paths or force foes into specific paths of travel. This type of strategy becomes extremely necessary in the later parts of the game as enemies will come from multiple start points and there is more than one area to defend. Fortunately, this strategy isn’t a fail safe as enemies are fairly intelligent; they will find holes or destroy structures to get through.

South Park LGTDP isn’t without its faults. The most prevalent is that it is clearly geared for multiplayer and co-op enjoyment. Although all of the missions can be played alone, once you complete the first couple of levels, you will quickly see how difficult it can be managing everything alone. You will be frequently changing characters during waves, trying to maximize your attacks and doing it on your own can sometimes lead to stupid mistakes, deaths and mission failures. If you can play with friends, the focus on one character allows for more variety and puts more emphasis on people working together to quickly build structures and attacking when necessary.

Graphics and Sound

South Park itself is not exactly a marvel in the animation department, but thankfully its unique paper cut-out feel is replicated here exactly as you would expect it to be. Locations, characters and enemies are instantly recognizable with plenty of variety within each. Certain levels even have their own bonus features, including things that can be used in your favour such as raw sewage and other oddities. There are no full-motion clips during the campaign; instead, the game relies on comic book style panels to progress the goofy story. Surprisingly, these scenes do a good job as a replacement.

There is a lot of original content here with the game’s story featuring full fledged dialogue. The only downside to the voice-work is during battles where your characters and enemies will quickly repeat themselves. It does get a bit annoying but at the same time, you are spending so much time doing multiple tasks you probably won’t hear them too often. I will give props to the stereotypical Chinese voice-over for announcing, it might be viewed as offensive to some, this is South Park and it’s expected.

Value

Fans of the series will absolutely love all the bonus content in store here. On top of unlocking Challenge modes as you progress through the game’s campaign, you will unlock extras including some of the best clips from previous South Park seasons, additional characters and other nice treats. These are unlocked in a number of different waves, but to get everything, you will need to invest a lot of time and get the highest possible scores.

Conclusion

To say this is the best South Park game is an understatement, it’s the only good one. For those who were worried this would be just another rushed licensed game should be relieved; there is a lot of fantastic content for fans of the series and the Tower Defense aspect of the game is done really well. If you have friends to play with or have faith with people over Xbox Live, I strongly suggest you get this and have some fun.

+ Great Fan Service
+ Fun Tower Defense Action
+ Incredible Co-Op
+ Various ways to take on each level
+ A lot of unlockables

- Repetitive dialogue during battles
- Very hard to play alone, better suited for multiplayer or co-op play
- If you’re not a fan, you will certainly not enjoy the humor

8.1 / 10

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More details about this game

Release Date : 2009/10/07
System : Xbox 360
Publisher : Microsoft Game Studios
Developer : South Park Digital Studios
Category : Strategy
ESRB : M

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