Dec 13 2004, 05:00 AM
Game: Cartman's Game
Creator: Sir Eatsalot
Genre: Miscelleanous/bizarre
Description: Help Cartman do various actions, such as avoiding blocks, red dots, rectangles, non geometrical forms and a badly drawn woman.

Rating: 30%

Review: I've never ever managed to find a South Park game that manages to make its point and statement at the very exact moment you boot the game. As you start the game, the author of the game (which goes by the very exotic sounding name of Sir Eatsalot) proclaims that his game has almost no point. Little did I knew that he was right about this statement, though.

Cartman's Game isn't really a game, it is 4 games all rolled into one. Each game involves Cartman trying to accomplish an interesting task such as avoiding stuff and... that's about it. Although every level is built in a different way, the gameplay is pretty similar through all the different games. On Level 1, you need to avoid the blocks that swarm through all sides of the playfield without being hit. However, all the blocks arrive to you in an incredibly slow fashion and the blocks always appear at the same places at a given time so it makes for a pretty unexciting play. Worse of all, this game is the longest part of the game since there are 5 levels that involves you doing the same exact thing, only though there's more blocks. Excitement factor, here we come!

On the second part of the game, you need to avoid moving black circles which fire red dots at you. I fail to see how red dots can be harmful to anyone but as Cartman is a wuss, I guess it's okay. There's no strategy or gameplay tactics required that can be put to use at all to avoid the red dots so you pretty much run around mindlessly and wait until the timer reaches zero. The only relief about this level is that once you've cleared it, you won't have to play through 4 other levels of the same kind again. Woah, there's actually redeeming qualities to this game, at last! Level 3 requires you to press a switch and (surprise!) avoid floor traps before the timer reaches 0, which will kill you since it disables deadly black rectangles that are deadly to Cartman's health (we all learnt at elementary school that rectangles kill people, right?). Not only the level's incredibly short (it can be completed in less than 5 seconds) but it also isn't fun to play either. The last level doesn't fare any better. You now need to avoid a badly-drawn woman which shoots blue rectangles at you whilst you shoot homing belly buttons which magically disappear before they get to reach the target 50% of the time. Oh well, this annoying glitch do manage to add some challenge to a game which was painstakingly boring to complete until now. The game ends without much of a fanfare with some text and a bad animation. That's it.

If you've paid some attention to the review for now, you already know how bad the graphics are. Most of the environments are single-colored backgrounds and most of the objects encountered through the game look bad and devoid of any graphical details. Most of the obstacles encountered through the game are circles, squares, rectangles and as a bonus, the floor traps aren't made of any singular geometrical form. The Cartman sprite used in the game is original, but it doesn't look pretty good and doesn't look much like a South Park sprite at all. The game is mostly empty of any sound effects, although the few sound effects are okay. The soundtrack is your usual fare MIDI soundtrack borrowed from various MIDI sites.

As you've easily guessed by now, I haven't been impressed at all by Cartman's Game. The only noteworthy thing about it is the name of the game's author and technically, it can't be used to rate a game. Terrible graphics, boring gameplay and an incredibly short lifespan doesn't make a game that is likely to thrill you. Seeing it's an avoidance game (as you spend the entire length of the game avoiding blocks, dots, rectangles and women) you should respect the game's aim and play along with it: avoid it at all costs.