Can anyone say cash-in???

If ever there was a show ripe for a console spin-off, it's South Park. Ever since Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny launched on TV, merchandise has been selling like hotcakes as more and more kids take part in the foul-mouthed comedy. One South Park game has already appeared on both Playstation and N64, to say it was abysmal is to put it lighly. Rushed onto the shelves in what looked like a matter of weeks, it was a stright re-hash of the Turok 2 system, bar the good points. <br><br>This latest title in the ever snowballing career of South Park's resident, is yet another re-hash of an old game. You don't Know Jack! was a novelty game released on the PC last year. This game challenged players to a quiz in an entertaining manner. Instead of the usual pub quiz with boring questions, some sections of the title involved interactive sub-games. Like the South Park shooter before it, Chef's Luv Shack takes the formula of an already existing game and manages to make it worse. <br><br>In exactly the same way as You Don't Know Jack!, Chef's Luv Shack sees our four heroes take part in a quiz show hosted by the gravel-voiced luve machine himself. In addition to the basic quiz, the show incorporates a range of mini-games to liven up proceedings. From the off it's designed as a multiplayer game, and can support up to four players depending on the number of controller pads you have. <br><br>Question topics like Hippies, Aliens, Asses and Anal Probes might seem amusing at first glance, but the reality turns out to be far more dull. Mini-games like Spank The Monkey, Tug-Oh-War and Asses in Space are the only real saving grace, gleefully subverting legends such as Track And Field and Space Invaders. It's just a pity you have to sit through the game show to play them. Could you answer such questions as: "Aside from Cartman's, the mosy common gas in our universe is...?". Simple yet beautiful. Once in a while you'll get a pressure round where you must answer ten questions in 20 seconds the incentive of which is to see Cartman have an anal probe painfully inserted where the sun ain't supposed to shine. In other words you don't want to fail. <br><br>Graphically there's little that can be said. As far as staying true to South Park's low-res ethos, it is as authentic and cheap as the genuine article. To be fair that is actually one of the game's stronger points as, were it not for the unnecessarily long loading times, it creates the illusion of you playing a part in a real episode, and seeing the characters react to your input is fun. A shame, then, that playing the gamem is such a pedestrian experience. The cool thing is, everyone is here, from Mr. Mackey to Scuzzlebutt and eventually, you'll encounter them all. <br><br>I say eventually for two reasons. The first is that the game is designed to bring in as many elements of the show as possible, and it actually dos a pretty good job. From trivia categories like "Robert Smith Kicking Ass" to mini-games like "Chicken Lover," you will run into a reference or the actual characters from just about every episode you can think of. The other reason is, of course, that like all games of this type, you will soon find that you've checked out everything there is to see. After a few extended games, questions and mini-games will have run their course, and this can get a bit discouraging, as you will want something more from the Shack than, as the game itself says, a "quickie." <br><br>And herein lies my primary problem with Chef and Co. Unless you have a host of friends to go at it with, you will really get tired of this game in a hurry, primarily because it seems no one at Acclaim bothered to create a structure to support single-player gaming. If you play by yourself, you end up doing just that. No AI opponents come to the rescue to give you a good run, and because of this, you always know who's going to win. The fact is, after games like Mario Party have set the trend of a computer controlled field for single player experiences, you'll want to be able to play a party-style game with multiple opponents, regardless of how many actual humans are at the helm. <br><br>Any accusations that the South Park movie was an exercise in selllling out were answered by it's superbly offenseive content, whereas the attempt to tone down Chef's Luv Shack to make it acceptable to the widest audience possible means it loses the very vulgarity that could have made it a hit. Fair is fair, and I have to admit that the game isn't exactly University Challenge but fans of the series will be left disappointed. <br><br>When all's said and done the, South Park: Chef's Luv Shack is a lacklustre affair that, even at a few coppers under 30 quid, is simply too slow and tedious to merit putting the cash down for. Prehaps another 15 pound off the price could have made it the multiplayer bargain that it strives to be.<br></P>