Ginger kids, old people, underpants gnomes and other general threats are invading South Park Colorado. It's up to Kenny, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and other South Park kids to keep the evil at bay with their snowballs, special abilities, and a variety of defensive towers. We gave this game a co-op whirl, curious to see if South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! is worth an 800 purchase, or if it's best left in the snow.
To me, tower defense games are generally too passive, almost boring to play. The primary goal is to set up towers in strategic locations along a set path to slow the advance of an enemy to protect a goal. If the goal is breached, the game is over. One way that South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! takes an interesting approach to the traditional Tower Defense genre is with the amount of player action mixed in with the strategic tower defense gameplay.
Each character can manually throw snowballs, aiding in the towers assault against wave after wave of varying styles of enemies. If you hold down your attack button, your snowball gets charged up for a more powerful attack - I won't tell you what they're made out of when charged though, it's a surprise. Having the ability to use your character for more than coin collecting or tower placement is great, and adds a definite flair to the game from the start. Tower Defense games rules still apply; you can't build solid walls to completely block movement of enemies or they will break everything down and go in a straight line toward the goal. You cannot touch the enemies with your character, that will knock your character out cold until someone can resurrect them or the wave is finished.
On top of your characters snowball throwing attack, each character has a special power that can be accessed by hitting Y when their "special meter" is filled. You fill this meter by using your thrown snowballs, so it would behoove you to actively participate in the defense of South Park. Each special attack adds a character-specific ability for a short period of time. For instance; Kenny's special knocks coins out of every enemy boosting your funds, Cartman unleashes his fury to damage every enemy on the screen, or Butters turns into a whirlwind to take out an entire wave of enemies.
These special attacks are important because the waves of enemies can become quite the challenge as you progress. You'll have to time your special attacks to coincide with the stronger, or faster enemy waves in order to survive the stage successfully. Also, keep in mind what each character does - if you find yourself stuck on a stage, it is incredibly helpful to switch to a character with a very different type of special attack. On the subject of challenges, the gap in difficulty levels for South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! seems much wider than it should be. "Casual" is almost too easy, Yet "Normal" can be infuriating in some places, leaving even a great co-op team struggling to survive waves.
In both the single player and co-op play, you will unlock characters that you will be able to switch between in your "party." Up to 4 characters can be used at a time in the game. Tweak, Jimmy, and others join the original four boys as you beat certain levels - each bringing an additional unique power, and their own personal touch to the amusing tower defense game. You will also unlock video files as you face new enemies or play with a new character. These video files are short clips from the show detailing creatures or characters you've encountered during your tower defense adventure - just in case you missed the episode introducing them in the 14 years that South Park has been around.
If you start up a co-op lobby, but have one or two empty spots, the unmanned characters will encourage you (in fairly irritating insults) to switch up and use them, while not actually walking around the map to attack enemies. You can change characters whenever you please, handy for unleashing these special attacks on your foes. Even the characters not being actively used will build up their special meter by automatically throwing snowballs, if you place them in a strategically sound place on the map (think of them as snarky turrets). You'll also want to keep in mind, each character has a slightly different movement speed. As an example, Hyperactive Tweak is faster than fatty Cartman, which changes how fast you collect coins, run to a position to set up more turrets, or how often you accidentally overstep and run straight into a line of enemies.
While playing co-op, your group will share coin resources for building towers. This fiscal challenge makes it necessary to communicate where certain towers should go on the map for maximum efficiency. For instance a laser in a straight line from where enemies have to walk in a straight line to do the most damage, or at least one tower sitting near the back of the level just in case some stray enemies get past your initial defense. If you don't like the placement of a tower, they're easily torn down, and most of their resources (coins) are returned. Pick up the coins, and build in a new place.
Communication isn't just for using resources in South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense. As the levels progress, it will be up to you to make the path that enemies will travel down. You manually build walls in the most zany zig-zag pattern imaginable to slow down the waves of enemies. However, it's usually a good idea to have one person lay the maze, while the other sets up the defensive towers. This will give you more time to think about what you want to do before the waves start to show up, and let you suggest to one another what works and what doesn't.
Fans of the series will appreciate the same humor, characters, and political incorrectness that made the show popular. Tower Defense fans will enjoy the challenges presented by the different enemies, boss battles, and the change-up with more action with their characters.