South Park: The Stick of Truth

South Park: The Stick of Truth, released in 2014, was made by Obsidian Entertainment in close collaboration with series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who personally oversaw the script and humor to make sure it precisely matched the style of South Park. The player takes on the role of a silent new kid in town who joins Cartman and the other children in their fantasy LARP game over a mighty wooden stick, which soon escalates into a genuinely dangerous adventure involving aliens, Nazi zombies, and a government conspiracy.

In terms of gameplay, it's a turn-based RPG inspired by genre classics, letting the player choose a class such as fighter, mage or thief, with a combat system using timed button presses to strengthen attacks and defenses, equipment crafting, and a branching skill tree. While roaming the town, the player visits familiar locations from the show, from the elementary school to Cartman's house to the local supermarket, and meets practically the entire supporting cast, including the main characters' teachers and parents. The humor faithfully mirrors the show's brash, vulgar and socially provocative style, including parodies of other games and pop-culture phenomena, and the whole town of South Park is rendered with a care that matches the look of the animated series, whose animation style the game deliberately borrows for its transition scenes as well.

The game was warmly received both critically and commercially, with particular praise for its faithfulness to the source material, sharp writing, and surprisingly functional RPG systems hidden beneath a layer of vulgar humor. Its release was complicated by the collapse of original publisher THQ, after which the game was ultimately bought and released by Ubisoft. The Xbox 360 version let fans of the show experience one of the best-received games ever based on an existing TV license and paved the way for the later sequel, The Fractured but Whole.

Why play it: Thanks to its faithfulness to the source show, clever writing and surprisingly solid RPG mechanics hidden under a layer of vulgar humor, it's worth a look even outside the circle of hardcore South Park fans.