Ohmigod, they've killed one of the best game licenses ever. Early last year the first South Park title was released on N64. It was terrible like every game in the series released so far. On PlayStation so far we've had d dreadful port-over of that same N64 shooter as well as Chef's Luv Shack. Both performed well when it came to sales much to the amazement of critics and, probably, Acclaim. This franchise deserves to be as dead as Kenny.<br> <br>The really maddening thing about South Park Rally is that it tries so desparately hard to be a decent racer, and actually succeeds on occasion, but is let down by its insufferable licence. You can even imagine the designers getting a little frustrated by their grief. The graphics must look crude and flat at all times in order to maintain the brand identity. Power-ups will include chocolate salty balls and the Mexican Staring Frog of Sri Lanka. Any version of the baloon battle has to substitute fat, round, floating butt cheeks. You are contractually obliged to set a track in Big Gay Al's Big gay Animal Sanctuary and the schoolyard. And so on.<br> <br>However, there are other issues, too. Instead of strictly linear tracks, each course is more like an open 3D environment with a variety of routes that can be opened or closed to create the circuit. Thus it's not always clear where you're supposed to be going, so you'll find yourself following the other karts and watching the map until you've managed to mesmorise the whole track and all it's intricacies.<br> <br>Then, to stop you taking too many liberties with this freedom layout, Tantalus have included some strict checkpoints, every one of which must be driven correctly for your lap to count. These checkpoints don't extend beyond the Tarmac, so it's dead easy to miss them sliding up the bank, cutting a corner or getting blasted off-course by another player. The result, unfortunately, is that demanding strain of gameplay where you can't afford to screw up at all. Tuning and driving back to clock a checkpoint amounts to the same as admitting you've already lost. We also arhued over whether there was any difference in the attributes of the vehicles-- it's minimal at best.<br> <br>Also innovative and yet thoroughly botched in this game is the addition of objectives in the place of standard flag-to-flag racing. While some of the events (capture the flag-type games, frag tag-type events, seek and deliver races) are good ideas, the execution is messed up by lack of insight on the designer's part. There is no strategy. When you need to hide from opponents with the flag, the size of the tracks makes you a hot dog in a hallway; when you're hunting opponents, same problem. The vicious, mechanical computer AI is always set to kill, so in frag tag (called Valentine's Day) you can't get far enough away to pick them off. <br> <br>Cameos from the TV show are also included. Nothing's new here -- Barf makes you slip like a Oil in Diddy Kong Racing, Mr. Hankey makes you invincible just like the Tiki God in Crash Team Racing, Water Balloons detonate like Mortars in Twisted Metal, Terrance & Phillip makes you fart turbo like the Dash in Chocobo Racer, and Pinkeye works like Lightening in Mario Kart. Also included are two view-obscuring items, one with Sadam Hussein taking over your screen, the other a slut hooker who leaves her herpes all over your windshield if you hit her.<br> <br>Boxy, chunky, blocky, simple, flat. All words to describe the show and the game South Park. We'll give the developer's a break here in that South Park doesn't exactly lend itself too well to gorgeous graphics. It's a simple show with simple effects and cheesy design. True, the special effects here are just sad (especially Big Gay Al's Disco Room, with a two-step moving texture), but they are true to the show. Every character ever on the show (except Craig and perhaps one or two other third-season additions) is in the game. From Scuzzlebutt to Jesus Christ to the hot-flashing hoe Ms. Cartman, the gang's all here. <br> <br>Lots of sounds are traveling all over the place, and they're fairly funny samples. Ones that made me chuckle were the whore (who solicits as she seeks), the underpants gnomes (who sing their song as they travel), and the anal probe (which turns opponents into Broadway singers with cupie-doll faces). Quite a feat to get all of those samples, as well as the voices of all the characters on the course, into the PlayStation's memory. However, sound samples are so miserably recorded that one can easily see how they shoehorned these samples in. These tracks are so low quality that often you can't understand characters' voices. <br> <br>South Park Rally will probably receive harsher criticism from some quarters than it actually deserves. Tantalus have piled on plenty of sub-games and hidden secrets, and expended much more effort than you'd expect from a rapidly dating licence. It's a pretty hard genre to screw up but this version of multiplayer karting was eclipsed even before release by games like Crash Team Racing and Speed Freaks. </P>