In this latest edition of South Park, Cartman has gotten wind of an invasion and has decided that it is his responsibility to protect South Park with the aid of a few of his friends. So enter Stan, Kyle and Kenny as they throw snowballs at an invasion only the creators Trey and Matt could come up with.

 

 

Now the Tower Defense template has been rather overused of late and when first announced many of us rolled our eyes expecting yet another cash in with a few funny jokes and characters. What we get instead is an evolution of the genre with a little sprinkle of arcade multiplayer fun added in the mix.

 

The basics are the same, place towers in strategic positions around the game map and upgrade them with coins dropped by fallen enemies. Of course each tower has a South Park twist, so you have fireworks, cherry bombs, lasers and baseball throwers. There are also some environmental specials involved, like at Kenny’s house you can use a garbage crane to drop rubbish on enemies. A mode that I have not come across in a game like this before is the ability to make walls. Some levels are just open spaces so it is up to you to build walls to guide the invaders, preferably around the longest route possible without blocking them off as they will start to smash up your beloved towers.

 

The enemies are all South Park greats and each have their own strengths and weaknesses like the grannies who are slow but well protected, underpants gnomes, Cartmans demonic forest friends who are small and fast plus plenty of hippies and ginger kids with each one blowing up in a gory spout of blood and bones.

 

The arcade action is based around the control of the four main cast members, once all of the preplanning has been done you are able to control either character with a press of the RB and throw snowballs at the invaders. Each character has a varying range of snowball power plus speed to move around. As you rack up kills your special meter grows, once full you can pull off a character specific move that may turn the tide of a fight like Cartman dropping nuclear bombs and Kenny producing extra coins.

 

 

There are plenty of levels, each with a few stages to play in the campaign mode plus a handful of challenge rooms where you can play as even more characters that you have unlocked including my favorite Butters and his twisted testicle. The amount of unlockable extras puts most retail games to shame, with loads of character profiles and even TV clips showing some of the funniest South Park moments.

 

South Park Lets Go Tower Defense Play! offers loads more to the overused tower defense games with a fun multiplayer and also classic South Park snippets. If you enjoy tower defense or South Park this is a perfect pocket money game.