South Park Rally Review

South Park Rally is a poor racing game that tries to capture the look and feel of the show with a few cute quips and phrases that become annoying after just a couple of races.

South Park Rally for the N64 tries to capture the feel of the South Park television series with a few phrases and familiar faces. Unfortunately, the game is not only unsuccessful in that, it also fails to deliver a fun or even competent racing-game experience. Even the most dedicated South Park fan would be hard pressed not to agree that the game's colorful charm quickly wears thin.

The idea behind South Park Rally is that the local townspeople commemorate every holiday by dragging out their go-carts and having a race, although some of the races aren't exactly races. Some are mission-based events that call for you to pick up a specific item - such as a trophy - and take it to different locations on the track. For instance, on Valentine's Day everyone assembles at Big Gay Al's place for a Valentine's Day shoot-out. The objective in this mission is to find Cupid's bow and arrow and then shoot all of the other racers with it. The catch is that all your opponents have to do to take it from you is to ram your vehicle. Many of the events are set up like this, where you're either being chased by a mob of racers or you're one of the members of the mob chasing down someone else. In any event, the game's poor control, sloppy physics, and poor track design keep it from ever being truly fun, not to mention hard to play.

The game starts out with a limited number of characters to choose from and only one track to race on. Although with every race that you complete, more and more characters and tracks open up for selection in the multiplayer mode. You can save these unlocked tracks to a memory pack, though unfortunately you can't save your progress. Instead, every time you start the game you have to go through all of the levels you've already played.

The control of the vehicles is very loose. Even when you use the hand brake to try to make a tighter turn, the results are often unpredictable. This has a lot to do with the floaty physics of the game, which let the cars flip over way more than they should.

Visually, South Park Rally does a fairly decent job of re-creating the look of the various characters and locations from the South Park universe. The game's frame rate stays fairly consistent, even when you're playing with four friends in the split-screen multiplayer mode. In the audio department, the game will certainly get a few laughs with a few trademarked phrases and one-liners from the show. Unfortunately, the number of quotes is extremely limited. By your fourth race in the game you'll be looking for an option to turn the audio off.

In the end, South Park Rally is a poor racing game that tries to capture the look and feel of the show with a few cute quips and phrases that become annoying after just a couple of races. Even for the most die-hard South Park fan, the game's references to the television series won't be enough to hide the fact that the game is a dirt-poor Mario Kart 64-styled racing game that should be avoided.

The Good

  • N/A

The Bad

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