Playing Games: South Park The Stick of Truth

It's been winter break in the last week for UM and Vince is out of town, so I took some time to play a few video games, and for the last few days, have been completely enrapt with South Park: The Stick of Truth.  As a die-hard South Park fan (I've seen every episode numerous times, own almost all of the DVD complete sets, etc) this game is amazing!  Any South Park fan will love it.  What's been doubly awesome is that I've enjoyed the game audio so much as well... very clever and craftily done!

I did a quick Google search to see what the top hits for SoT are in terms of the music.  Many of the top hits discuss problems with the music dropping out, the fact that the audio uses songs from the show (Sexual Harassment Panda, Taco-Flavored Kisses, Let's Fighting Love, etc), and that the audio generally is great or is not great.  Further down in the results came some more interesting ideas about the music and sound effects spoofing Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Diablo.  Even further down in the results came mentions of Gregorian Chant and Middle-Earth.  What's so shocking to me is this: considering Matt Stone and Trey Parker have created two highly acclaimed musicals, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut as well as The Book of Mormon, the music in this game has, so far at least, gotten very little attention!    

I don't know that this post will ever be a top Google hit for the game music, but I took some notes as I played and would like to add some specificity to the discussion of its audio, and more precisely, its music.  Quite frankly, I find the audio in this game to be genius, and despite the flaws in the music at time dropping out, or the visual glitches/ audio lag-- which can really get terrible at times-- I think the use of music in the game is incredible and deserves special mention.  Here are some of my highlights:

First of all, the biggest thing to jump out to me about the game audio is the variety of it.  There are mock religious songs, Japanese TV-like themes, "elevator" music in Planned Parenthood, and fully orchestrated music at times contrasting with 8-bit sounds.  How many games have this variety of music as part of the standard gameplay audio?  Also, the music is cleverly used in various games, puzzles, and attacks during the gameplay.  I'd say the use and and incorporation of music in this game rivals a Zelda game-- which from me is high praise!  

Probably my favorite moment in the entire soundtrack is when you enter Canada.  The music immediately changes to a two or three part 8-bit soundtrack, and the sound effects are reminiscent of Dragon Warrior.  Check what I mean below in this video around 16:23-17:23.  Not only do you hear the O Canada two part version, but also the music when entering the cave is very NES Wizards and Warriors.  

There are also musical games as well.  For instance, when you're on the alien spacecraft, there's a "Simon" like game where you follow musical combinations to release Randy.  Check out 17:00-17:45 for a funny version of this Simon game.  

Another clever use of typical game music gaming is the DDR like moments when you are convincing the Goth kids to help you or when you use Jimmy's Bardic Song powers.  

I haven't played Skyrim, so I can't comment on references to its audio in this game music, but I definitely hear Diablo in the Storage Cellar.  The guitar strumming reminds me of Tristam's theme.   Listen below from 3:43-4:00 to catch this reference.  Also notable to me are references to the Hobbit/ Shire theme of the Lord of the Rings movies.  You can hear that in the video below as well from 34:22-34:43.  Compare with the LOTR theme in this video around 5:08-5:22.  Both the instrumentation, the shape of the melodic line, and the rhythm of the melody share similarities that make the Stick of Truth music below recall it.  

Many webpages have mentioned that you hear snippets of the show on TVs and songs from the show on the radio.  But it's better than "just" this...  Not only do various televisions and radios play songs from the show, the most clever part of that audio decision is that you can choose to turn on/off many of these devices, adding a level of realism to the audio environment and letting you sculpt certain moments sonically.  

My favorite of the pop song references is one the Goth kids are listening to, All In Your Head.  Being about the same age as Matt and Trey, I immediately heard this as a reference to the Cranberries 1994 hit, "Zombie."  While the beginning of the songs are virtually identical, for me, the refrain is what struck me and made me think to look up Zombie.  Thus, particularly compare 1:00-1:30 below with the main refrain of Zombie-- in the link above, that's 1:34-2:00.  

Now to be fair, the audio is not all perfect...  If I had to pick one moment as an audio fail, it would be the generator in Professor Chaos' lab.  The sound effect there is just clunky-- as if being a small distance across the room would obscure how loud the generator is when you're close to it?  A nice try by the sound designers for realism, but it's overdone and made me laugh when I first heard it.  I noticed in the credits that the audio is integrated via Wwise and after recently playing Epic Mickey as well, I'm wondering if this is just a clunky part of Wwise's integration.  I've not tried it before, but the max/min radius with this generator sound is simply too small and crazy in the storage unit.  

If I've piqued your interest, check out the soundtrack, which I can't believe is already posted online.  I didn't hear the O Canada theme in this, just the "Blame Canada" music, so I'm not actually sure this is the complete soundtrack.  Still, it's cool to be able to hear this music.  I'll leave you with one of my last favorite moments, which is the Japanese TV theme like music that plays toward the end of the game.  In this video, that's around 18:25.  Enjoy!