Junkman
Dec 13 2004, 02:21 PM
Game: South Park Surfing
Creator: Joolsa Games
Genre: WTF?!
Description: Help Cartman be a top notch surfer, which means jumping over waves and collecting gems for some reason...

Rating: 3%

Review: Everybody know about this game. Everybody remember it. Everybody won't play it again. You should know this already: a lot of SP games range within the average-mediocre range. Unfortunately, this game deserves to be ranked a lot lower. It'll be hard to write this review without getting into intense cussing sessions telling how this game's bad, how it's badly made, and how much of an SP game it is, just like how rap is a good musical style. I'll try my best to be fair, so read on fellow readers, and please point out any places during this review's writing where my hand might have gone crazy and typed in really bad stuff.

The game begins with the logo screen and followed by an awful sound clip. In a high-pitched voice is shouted out "JOOLSA GAAAAAMES!", and it could be enough to make you close the program right away. If you survived the first trial, don't worry, you shall be tested yet again.

Then here comes the title screen, where we see Cartman surfing around the screen while text is scrolling by. You can't skip it, and unfortunately it's hard to stare at this scenery without crying. Did you put your goggles on your face now? Yes? Too bad, because they won't actually protect you. MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!

Finally, you get to the menu screen. You have a whopping choice of 2 styles of play: Race and Freestyle. None of them are really different; you control Cartman and then you try to jump over badly-drawn waves. You continue doing so 'till you're sick of it and close the program or collide into a wave. The added twist of the Race mode is that you have a time limit and gems to collect. Not that it makes the game more interesting, though.

What about graphics? These aren't better and just contribute to give an even more discouraging experience. The carnage starts right off the loading screen and continues through the whole game. The badly-rendered Cartman graphic on a surf board is the only South Park graphic of this game. Apart from that, there's nothing else. The crowd and other graphics aren't related to the show at all. The waves look awful, and these enlarged gems are...uhh...bad. Close your eyes before playing this...

The sound department also scores in the mediocre. That "JOOLSA GAAAAAMES!" sound could be used to plunge Ned into a catatonic state, just like these nasty mexican hypnotic frogs of Sri Lanka does. There's no in-surf music (dunno if that's a real word though) and there's this Pulp Fiction song playing in the menu screen and contributes to gives this game a whopping 1 meg download. It could have been easily removed, IMHO. The sounds in the surfing sessions aren't better. There's this nasty crowd yelling at me, breaking my ear spine, and driving me crazy. If only Cartman could jump into the stands to kick the crowd in the nuts, I'd be happy. But I couldn't manage that, sigh. The other sound effect is easily forgettable.

I hope by now you know about my verdict about this game. IT SUCKS!! SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS! Oh damn, I lost it. I knew I couldn't handle the pressure of writing a swear-free review, so feel free to beat me. I'm glad however that all other games made by Joe Allen are a lot better than this butchy, badly-made, and ridiculisable POS. If the game was 1 meg smaller, like it should have been, I would have been more lenient in this review. If you just bumped into this review and you don't know anything about SP Games, heed this warning. Do not play the game, period. It can only save your life.

EDIT: Just modified the ranking to give it the score it truly deserves. Hell, I have no clue why I didn't gave it 0 in the first place.