If, like me, you've been waiting for a video to clue you in on how South Park: The Stick of Truth actually plays, you've finally found it. I've been a bit confused by this game up until now - it was difficult to tell if previous videos were comprised of gameplay footage or just 'gameplay footage' - but it seems Obsidian have really nailed the look of the show, at least in its high-definition, not-hugely-funny-anymore current iteration. You'll want to read Tom's hands-on preview for a proper impression of the game, but stick around for the following thirteen minutes, which show what the game involves between cutscenes and turn-based JRPG-style battles. It's all quite exciting really, and it makes me long for a Futurama game to be given the same sort of painstaking treatment.
If you'd rather go in cold, of course, you'll probably want to avoid the following thirteen minutes, but if you're on the fence I'd really recommend giving it a skim at least. South Park: The Stick of Truth is out March 4th in the US, and three days later in drizzly Blighty.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.