South Park: The Stick of Truth (PRE-RELEASE DISCUSSION)

[Duraframe300]

Pre-Load is now available on Steam.

 

[Broseph]

Pre-Load is now available on Steam.

I already shot my load.

 

[Decado]

Any Australians care to weigh in on why their country is apparently filled with censor-happy pussies? What the fuck is it with you guys and censoring video games? Enough already.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I wrote about it a few pages back. Technically the exact same rules apply to video games as they do to film and tv, but the specifics (esp. the sexual assault 'without context' mean that it's more likely to occur in video games). Unfortunately the ratings board are just applying the rules which have been put in place (which were significantly improved last year with the R18 rating, but there's still come stupid caveats).

As to why exactly, I think it's just because people are too lazy to get it changed, and it's super easy to make a 'save the children' argument against it. We don't have this 'fight for your freedoms' mentality that a lot of Americans seem to have.

It's interesting because there's actually much less censorship in film (cinemas do not refuse to show NC-17-equivalent films), tv (there is swearing and boobs on free to air) and music (there are no stores which refuse to sell cds with swearing, so the idea of a 'clean' cd is nonexistent), it's just video games.

 

[SuicideBunny]

weird. steam store page lists march 6th as the release date while the coming soon tab has march 4th (but sorts it below games coming out on the 6th)...

 

[Broseph]

It's March 4 in North America.

 

[SuicideBunny]

i guess it's early unlock proxy time again.

 

[ColCol]

Going to buy on the first day despite being disappointed with Obsidian. Come Obsidian Come, feed me like the pig I am, put anything in the trough.

am.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Going to buy on the first day despite being disappointed with Obsidian.

ds3 was actually fun for a console hack'n slash and bug free, soz was excellent oldschool fun with modern updates like a shitton of skill/religion/feats/class/whatever checks, motb was just sweet, especially the ultimate evil path, new vegas was good and managed to bring some fallout 2 vibe back after fallout 3, alpha protocol wasn't much of a game but as a concept demo for the c&c stuff it was pretty darn amazing.
what exactly is there to be disappointed about?

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Going to buy on the first day despite being disappointed with Obsidian.

ds3 was actually fun for a console hack'n slash and bug free, soz was excellent oldschool fun with modern updates like a shitton of skill/religion/feats/class/whatever checks, motb was just sweet, especially the ultimate evil path, new vegas was good and managed to bring some fallout 2 vibe back after fallout 3, alpha protocol wasn't much of a game but as a concept demo for the c&c stuff it was pretty darn amazing.
what exactly is there to be disappointed about?

Was thinking of posting a some guy sucking a fat penis, but didn't want to go through the trouble. Just visualize it and you get the point I'm getting at.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Was thinking of posting a some guy sucking a fat penis, but didn't want to go through the trouble. Just visualize it and you get the point I'm getting at.

if you're too lazy to post actual counters, i'm too lazy to visualize some dick-sucking guy.

 

[Crooked Bee]

According to a Something Awful poster who used to be a producer on this game, Stick of Truth is going to be basically completely linear. No branching paths, dialogue or quests, nothing like that. Apparently, none of the Obsidian's strengths are being played to by this game. To my question as to why that is so, he replied that he didn't really know but (I quote) "my guess would be that in order to really make the best/funniest story, you need to sort of have foreknowledge of what the player has already done, and branching paths that a player will only see one of might be considered "wasted" paths by traditional movie/TV storytellers. "

On the other hand, that same guy also says the game is tons of fun and pretty lengthy, so it is very likely that it'll work pretty well as an interactive South Park episode - which is supposed to be its goal in the first place.

Take all the above with a grain of salt, of course. Obviously that's just one guy's perspective which may miss other ways in which the "Obsidian touch" might have influenced the game.

 

[Renegen]

The LP videos already show there's plenty of side quests and even the main quests and story are somewhat open world.

 

[Xor]

The Mario RPG series is linear as hell; that's pretty much what I was expecting. I'll probably wait to pick this up (money's tight since I just bought a new computer), but it looks pretty good.

 

[Athelas]

The South Park creators had full creative control and they are apparently huge jRPG fans. Not sure why anyone was expecting anything else.

 

[Duraframe300]

According to a Something Awful poster who used to be a producer on this game, Stick of Truth is going to be basically completely linear. No branching paths, dialogue or quests, nothing like that. Apparently, none of the Obsidian's strengths are being played to by this game. To my question as to why that is so, he replied that he didn't really know but (I quote) "my guess would be that in order to really make the best/funniest story, you need to sort of have foreknowledge of what the player has already done, and branching paths that a player will only see one of might be considered "wasted" paths by traditional movie/TV storytellers. "

On the other hand, that same guy also says the game is tons of fun and pretty lengthy, so it is very likely that it'll work pretty well as an interactive South Park episode - which is supposed to be its goal in the first place.

Take all the above with a grain of salt, of course. Obviously that's just one guy's perspective which may miss other ways in which the "Obsidian touch" might have influenced the game.

Wait, what?

There are sidequests and the town opens up a bit shortly after the beginning. And the game isn't THAT lengthy (but well polished).

Maybe he was a producer earlier in development? Design seems to have changed.

 

[Average Manatee]

I hope to god this is real.

(Matt and Trey making fun of european censorship)

Spoiler

 

[Caim]

I don't see why linearity is a problem with this game: there's plenty side quests and games in the genre, like the afore-mentioned Mario RPG, are often very linear yet are a LOT of fun.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Having branching stuff/non-linear quest solutions and having sidequests aren't the same thing. That guy was talking about the game not having an ounce of the former, but that doesn't exclude that "there are sidequests and the town opens up a bit".

I'm okay with a linear game as long as it's good. It's just a bit disappointing (if true) that it doesn't have any branching at all, 'cause that's Obsidian's main strength.

I also don't think he meant the game is very long either. Just that it isn't as short as some people may make it out to be.

 

[Duraframe300]

Having branching stuff/non-linear quest solutions and having sidequests aren't the same thing. That guy was talking about the game not having an ounce of the former, but that doesn't exclude that "there are sidequests and the town opens up a bit".

I'm okay with a linear game as long as it's good. It's just a bit disappointing (if true) that it doesn't have any branching at all, 'cause that's Obsidian's main strength.

I also don't think he meant the game is very long either. Just that it isn't as short as some people may make it out to be.

Ah, I see what you meant. Yeah, to be honest I didn't excpect that from near the announcement except maybe a cartman/kyle choice.

 

[Broseph]

It has a silent protagonist like Pokemon and a million other JRPGs, so yeah, this ain't no Alpha Protocol. It's surprisingly good for how un-Obsidian-like it is though.

 

[Infinitron]

Here is the producer poster in question: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3553445&userid=69314

Do note that he is an Ubisoft employee, he's not from Obsidian at all.

 

[Duraframe300]

http://www.spike.com/articles/754df...-lows-of-making-south-park-the-stick-of-truth

Thomas: As a designer, for me, the most special qualities of the game are that there are moments where the game is strictly reacting things that you might do, kind of contingent humor. Where you chose to do this thing, but not every player will ever find that location, let alone ask themselves, "I wonder if I can…?" "What if I fart on this person, at this time," when it's supposed to be super dramatic, and everyone's supposed to be taking the moment seriously.

Matt especially ran a high-pressure writers room, intended to generate meaningfully funny responses to all those things. A lot of other people - bluntly, people that come out of linear media - would not have even bothered. They would have said, "eh, not my thing. I'm going to stick to structure, because that's what I care about." But, reactivity; there aren’t many games that have gone there. There are old LucasArts adventure games where there are a few cases where experimental play turns into a punch line, but you didn’t have a lot of tools to experiment with. This game has a full suite of action tools, and growth choices, like which class you're playing effects some of these jokes. That's why I was attracted to the project, because they were willing to say, "yeah, okay, there's going to be this narcissistic tornado in the middle of all of our jokes, and we're going to account for that."

 

[Athelas]

Obsidian once again pioneers and innovates in the field of choice & consequence and reactivity in RPG's. Incredible.

 

[Calapine]

Obsidian once again pioneers and innovates in the field of choice & consequence and reactivity in RPG's. Incredible.

If that's sarcasm it's too subtle.