No reason for its existence

Last month (February) I sat down and took a look at Acclaim Entertainment’s latest attempt to bring the South Park license into the homes of PCs. Unfortunately, as Acclaim has done with its past two South Park-based games, South Park Rally fell face first onto the concrete – hard. When South Park Rally was first announced the game certainly had promise to rise up above the problems that went wrong with the other titles, but again it seems that the game has been rushed to meet demand and make the quick buck, thus leaving us with another trashy game. The Nintendo 64 incarnation comes not long after its PC counterpart, and while there are a few differences (both good and bad) between them, ultimately it’s the same drab game we checked out before.

Like almost anyone will immediately notice, South Park Rally bares a strong resemblance to Nintendo’s fantastic Super Mario Kart. The main similarities that the two games share is the use of floating cubes on the track representing power ups that give the racer a speed boost, offensive attack or defensive attack, and that all the characters zip around in little kart-like vehicles. Past this resemblance, South Park Rally then injects its own unique brand of humor and gameplay ideas.

After making my way through the PC game with its high resolution graphics, it was somewhat saddening to take a step down to the Nintendo 64. Within a few races, however, it was noticeable that the step down was not all that bad. South Park Rally holds up quite well on the machine. It still features the relatively simplistic visuals present otherwise, and the only possible thing I could complain about would be the resolution, though that isn’t the fault of game than it is the TV and system itself. The unsophisticated graphics thus lend themselves to recreate the feel of the South Park TV show easily and the environments and tracks that the game’s races take place in give the feel that you are actually racing through that little town up in the middle of nowhere.

South Park Rally works in the way of giving you certain objectives that have to be completed. At the start of the game, all that has to be done is make it from one checkpoint to the next a certain numbers of times, and you’ll win. As you advance in the races, though, the objectives and goals will become increasingly more complicated. Things will soon jump from heading to a checkpoint to grabbing two particular items and utilizing them against the other racers. One of the main problems with South Park Rally springs forth not from the complexity of the objectives, but the manner in which the games allows you to play through them. The central mode of the game is its “Championship”, where as you complete each race you move onto the next. What happens is that the game does not allow for unlimited plays of each race, but instead provides five coins and each of them represent a continue. Scattered throughout the tracks are bonus coins that can be collected, though usually this means going off course and reaching an area that will automatically result in you losing the entire race.

Once all the coins have been lost into the realm of oblivion, the game throws you back to the beginning menu. You can’t start off where you left off, you have to start all over again. For the first few stages this isn’t much of a hassle, but making it to the tenth stage and then losing it only to restart is immensely frustrating, to say the least. It’s possible to practice the completed races in the arcade mode, but that doesn’t help in making it back to the previously obtained spot in the Championship. South Park Rally would have been much more enjoyable in its single player form had this quirk been remedied.

A problem with the PC South Park Rally was the lack of a multiplayer mode over the Internet, and while the Nintendo 64 is quite unable to pull that feat off, it is possible to have four players simultaneously on the same machine. The modes available are restricted to the stages that have been earned through the Championship, so the game tortures you by playing through as much of the frustrating Championship as possible to attempt to regain a semi-fun multiplayer experience. When it comes right down to it, though, it just is not worth the effort.

Unsurprisingly, South Park Rally on the Nintendo 64 is no worse than its PC-powered brother, though it really is no better, either. Perhaps now that Acclaim is beginning to see a decline in sales they will realize that in order for a game to sell well it actually has to be a decent game. Maybe they’ll take that into consideration when developing the next inevitable South Park title.