Beamer
Dec 13 2004, 05:11 AM
Game: Corporal Cartman
Creator: Subwoofer
Genre: Arcade Action Platformer
Description: Playing as Cartman, you are Cartman in the middle of a war zone. By running around a confined area, shooting down your enemies and getting bigger guns, you have to try to get the highest score possible.

Rating: 56%

Review: I’m sure we all know Subwoofer, that talented click gamer Aussie who made Scream In South Park and South Park Star Wars. Well, in late 2000, he released a somewhat less popular game called Corporal Cartman – a fast paced military-style arcade game that basically revolved around shooting everything you see within this one level. Not really intended to be the next Scream in SP or SP Star Wars, this game was actually made as a competition for South Park Games 2000, which was a website Subwoofer belonged to back then. Despite it’s bad storyline, numerous bugs and shocking replay value, Corporal Cartman was still a fun game to boot and received high levels of praise throughout the South Park Gaming community when it was released. However, did it deserve all the praise it got at the time?

This game opens with a pretty flashy intro (which I’m sure added at least 1mb to the file size) and then leads to a game menu with a very cool-looking but rather pixilated Cartman graphic. The problem here is that the intro is about 20 seconds long, and you NEED to watch it to get to the menu. If you skip the intro, you will also skip the menu and jump straight into a new game. Although a nice looking intro is something that can definitely not make a game worse, the one thing players don’t want to see is an intro that’s impossible to skip. It just gets incredibly annoying after the second time you boot the game, and only frustrates the audience. Still, considering that the menu basically only contained Play, Help and Quit options, most people would usually only go straight to play anyway. Considering that skipping the intro leads straight to this, this can be forgiven, but it still is rather annoying.

So, how does the game work? Well, you are Cartman. You walk left and right throughout a small field while army guys will either walk in from outside the play area, or parachute in. It’s up to you to run left and right, blowing off their heads in a violent manner, or destroying their tanks. By reaching a certain score, you complete the game. Your weapons consist of a rifle, flamethrower, grenade launcher and several other nifty killing machines. However, instead of just picking them up or beginning with them, these weapons parachute down. When collecting these weapons, your gun will automatically change to them, and there’s no way to change it back to an old gun you had until you collect another gun. Still, the game has a really arcade-style feel, and it’s a very neat concept.

However, this concept brings lots of problems. Firstly, whether Cartman is walking left or right – he’s either on the far left or far right of the screen. Now, this seems like a good idea and all, considering that it helps you see more ahead of you, but it is also very flawed. For starters, you can’t see anything behind you unless you turn around, and when you DO turn around – the camera moves straight away so that Cartman flicks to the other side of the screen. This camera system does have its advantages, but for the most part, it’s very confusing and frustrating. Also, the engine itself is full of bugs. Animations constantly freeze up, sprites get frozen in the background, bullets sometimes won’t shoot – and even Cartman himself can randomly disappear at times! Things like this ARE mentioned in the Help section to give warning, but it’s still no excuse.

Basically, this game isn’t bad, it’s just very rushed. Subwoofer said it himself that it was rushed. But was this nifty concept worth wrecking, just so he could release it sooner? Of course not. It’s a pity, too. There were so many unique and fun ideas displayed here, and it could have made a really good and playable game if not for these bugs. Instead, this has become the sort of game that you’d probably play 3 or 4 times then just never open the EXE file again. It’s a shame that Subwoofer ended his SPGaming career this way – he really was a talented click gamer. It just goes to show you just what happens when a game is rushed.