Junkman
Dec 13 2004, 01:41 PM
Game: South Park Arcade 2
Creator: Joe Dixon
Genre: Beat em' up
Description: Bullies and other unlikeable goons are ramping on the town... again. It's up to Cartman to sort this problem out once more!

Rating: 68%

Review: This game borrows a lot of stuff from South Park Arcade 1, so you might want to read the SPA1 review first before I get guilty of damaging reader's eyeballs with similar reviews. smile.gif

However, the story is a bit different now. Cartman got a meaning to bash up these poor bullies this time. The game actually follows where the Mecha treisand episode ended. Mecha Streisand has been defeated, Cartman will ought to guard the triangle of Zinthar, but he lost it and it appears that the bitch is back. Cartman better gotta get the triangle back..

What's new since the original? Well, apparently not much. You visit bully-infested levels, you kill them with a single hit from your fists, and you keep doing so 'till a boss appears or 'till you can proceed to the next screen. There's two different things with the bullies however in this game. The good thing is that bullies are a bit smarter and they can hurl damageable stuff at you. The bad thing is there's no real other enemy type however. Things are however better in the boss departement. The bosses are harder than those in SPA1, due to their many attack patterns they'll throw at you. Bosses include a mean bully, Scuzzlebutt, Barbara Streisand, and others. There's also some scrolling levels, but they are pretty tame due to the lack of obstacles (especially the first sewer level). In overall, the gameplay is fun, but way too similar from South Park Arcade.

Like in the old game, nothing much improved graphically. The graphics has been enlarged a bit, thus giving a better feel of street-fighting, but the sprites are a bit pixelated and suffer from some bugs at times (bullies with white and grey eyes for instance). Background elements do the job.

The soundwork of SPA2 is better than it's precessor. Music is still sparse, but there's much more music to be heard in the background while fighting and that's a good thing. Sound effects are the usual fare from the original game, with a few more voice-work from the boys (yeah, you'll see more than Cartman's butt in the game, but still get to play as him though, sorry) and Barbara Streisand.

To close this up, South Park Arcade 2 is good, but way too similar to it's precessor. Fans were probably expecting more out of the sequel and may be a bit dissapointed at the game. If you don't mind playing a bit longer to SPA1, grab the game, otherwise you might just want to stick with South Park Arcade 3.