Postal 2, Custer’s Revenge, Leisure Suit Larry. Gaming’s most offensive game could be handed to any of these without much argument. There might be a new contender though if my time with South Park: The Fractured But Whole is an indicator of what’s to come. While I’d played it before, that previous demo was nothing compared to the new one shown at E3 2017. I’ll break it down for you, in all its gross, disgusting, offensive, but more importantly, hilarious glory.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is easily on my most anticipated list,
So it all starts at a strip club. The New Kid, the protagonist from The Stick of Truth, is on a mission to find a particular stripper with a dick tattoo. With her (my character in the demo was a girl with a unicorn themed super hero persona) is Captain Diabetes, whose ability to go into a sugar fueled rage will play into the end of the mission.
Heading inside things aren’t too crazy at first, I mean sure, the game shows full nudity and the strippers are dancing all over. Oh and I shot a used condom off the bathroom ceiling using a fire cracker, did I forget to mention that? Anyway, so my hero and Captain Diabetes work to find this specific stripper, which ends up with them deciding that they need to interrogate some regulars to find out which of the strippers has a tattoo of a dick. So Captain Diabetes grabs a couple of drunk guys and convinces them that the two kids are strippers themselves.
The group heads into the VIP area where I then watched as a child performed a lap dance for a grown man. Being a South Park fan I was laughing the whole time, but the insanity was not lost on me. The New Kid then had to perform her own lap dance, which became a minigame, of course. As usual, Matt Stone and Trey Parker find a way to skewer whatever medium they are telling their story in, and this time its with a QTE heavy minigame that involves dancing on an adult male’s lap as I farted the whole time.
Once the farts became too much for the man he offered up the info we wanted. Turns out the stripper they’re looking for is Classi, who fans from the show will remember from some recent episodes. Captain Diabetes decides that our best way to find Classi is to spike the DJ’s drink and call her to the stage ourselves. Hunting around the back the duo have to work through a few puzzles, using The New Kid’s special fart abilities as well as the new firecrackers. Finally we have the ingredients we need, which include a gin and tonic as well as a rat turd, something even grosser that I can’t quite remember, and one of The New Kid’s signature farts.
Handing the drink over, the DJ downs it quickly and immediately runs off to deal with what just went into his mouth. Captain Diabetes does a fantastic strip club DJ impression to call Classi to the stage. She shows up but thinks we’re cops coming after her so we have to follow her into the back room with the other strippers. This section was mostly combat oriented, which I’d encountered a little earlier with the two men in the VIP area, but now is the best time to describe the new mechanics.
Combat is turn based once again, and also again there are some QTE options to add damage to enemies and avoid damage while on defense. The combat seems a bit simplified for Fractured But Whole, with characters wielding three different attacks that have different areas of effect and bonuses, such as Captain Diabetes’ rush maneuver that sends him through enemies. This is key as our goal here isn’t necessarily to defeat all the enemies. Rather we’re trying to reach Classi, who is hiding behind them. The New Kid deals some good damage, but for covering ground it was all Captain Diabetes.
Combat in South Park: The Fractured But Whole is turn based once again, so I cycle through my two heroes while making sure to tap X whenever the strippers attack and it flashes on screen. Each character’s attacks are unique, dealing different damage to different locations, working together is important, and focusing on your goal helps push things along. With Captain Diabetes’ rush I was able to reach Classi quickly, repeating the process once more before engaging in the final battle.
Here a large stripper appeared and began chasing us. She was trying to sit on us, which Captain Diabetes quickly pointed out would probably kill us. Once again I needed to rush through the area, but here is where the turn based nature of combat is key. The new stripper steals players turns via a real time count down. Strategy was key here, making sure that Captain Diabetes never missed a turn, and trying to spend my turns at the right moment so that an enemy stripper would have her turn stolen. About three moves in for each character I was through.
Classi ran off once again, hiding behind some security guard. Through some comical scene the guard ends up dead and Captain Diabetes uses his super power to try to clear the door that Classi had fled through. This doesn’t go according to plan, and as Diabetes died in front of me the demo was over.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is easily on my most anticipated list, and this demo did nothing but solidify its place there. The game is horrifyingly offensive, but fans of the property would have it no other way. It’s clear that Ubisoft is not censoring Matt and Trey in any way, if this demo is anything representative of the final game.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole arrives on October 17th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
