South Park: The Stick of Truth Review

Before I start this review off, let me just say that I absolutely ADORE RPG games. The first RPG game I've ever played was Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation 1. It absolutely amazed me with it's story, characters, and overall gameplay. After this game, I went on to play every other Final Fantasy game, as well as some other RPG games like Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, the Mario & Luigi series, Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger, the list goes on. Anyways, on with the review.

South Park. What can you say? It's probably one of the best cartoons not intended for children. It happens to be one of the most controversial cartoons to date, it's been going for over 17 seasons since 1997. Almost every episode was great, with a few exceptions, the characters are very memorable and the writing is clever. As with every licensed TV show, there have to be games based off South Park. The South Park games in the past few years have been pretty mediocre. The first South Park game was a pretty bad first person shooter with cardboard cutout enemies, but with good multiplayer, Chef's Luv Shack was a mediocre collection of minigames and a trivia game thrown together, and South Park Rally was a very confusing racing game that has innovative features, but the gameplay falls flat on it's face. «South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play!» and «South Park: Tenorman's Revenge» were OK, but nothing amazing.  Right now I'm going to review South Park: The Stick of Truth, the most recently relased South Park game, released on March 4^th, 2014 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 & PC. It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the same people who made Fallout:New Vegas & published by Ubisoft, initially THQ, before they went bankrupt and sold the rights to Ubisoft. I'll be talking about the PC version. I'm pretty sure the other versions are exactly the same, just with different controls. This game has seen numerous delays throughout it's development cycle. Matt Stone & Trey Parker have stated that they enjoy role-playing games and that they believe the genre is the best fit for bringing the South Park universe into the interactive medium. They also stated that the learning curve was greater than anything else they had done apart from their Broadway musical, "The Book of Mormon".  I hope they didn't mess it up like the other games.  Let's start off with the story. Now I'm warning you guys, prepare for spoilers. You will have to skip to Gameplay & Other Stuff section if you don't want the story ruined for you.

Story:

The story takes place after the Black Friday 3-part story arc of Season 17. You begin the game as the New Kid, who has recently moved to the quiet little mountain town of South Park, along with his parents. He can't speak, not now at least. As he goes outside, Butters is seen being beaten up by an elf. After he gives the elf a beating to the head, Butters thanks the New Kid and adds him as a friend, and introduces him to the Wizard King, played by Cartman. Cartman welcomes the New Kid to the Kingdom of Kupa Keep or KKK for short, names him «Douchebag», and introduces him to the Stick of Truth, which has powers, where if someone was to own it, they would be able control the universe. Clyde Donovan was given the task to secure the Stick from the Elves, only to have it stolen, and therefore Clyde is banished from space & time. The New Kid helps out Cartman to find a team of people to join in his force, which includes Tweek Tweak, Token Black & Craig Tucker. After letting Tweek & Token to join the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, only Craig is left at school, in detention, for flipping off the principal. After the New Kid is taught the Dragonshout fart, Cartman & the KKK go to school to bust Craig out of school, but it's controlled by ginger hallway monitors from the inside. After busting Craig out, the KKK sets off tho find out that the Stick is owned by the Bard (Jimmy Valmer), a level 10 elf who has the powers of music. After teaching teaching Cup-a-Spell to the New Kid, Cartman & the KKK find him in the Inn of the Giggling Donkey & defeat him, then get the Stick back. Everyone goes to sleep, including the New Kid, who suddenly gets abducted by the Visitors the following night. Hey, sounds familiar? The aliens try to anally probe the New Kid, but the alien probe is broken, which is then automatically shoved up his butt. He gets the help from Randy Marsh, Stan's dad, who also happens to be abducted by the Visitors. They both break free and get back home, but the UFO is crashed into the South Park Mall, completely destroying it.

The next day, the New Kid goes to Cartman to find out that the Stick was stolen yet again. With no time to waste, unless you're doing one of the game's many side quests, the New Kid sets off to recruit the Goth Kids. Along the way, when recruiting the Goth Kids, the New Kid is interrupted by a PTA meeting at the community center, hosted by Principal Victoria, Mr.Garrison, Mr.Adler, Randy Marsh & Shelia Broflovski. Randy teaches the New Kid the Sneaky Squaker, a fart that can distract enemies. Once the New Kid goes to the UFO, it's revealed that the goverment is going to open up a new Taco Bell. Though once the New Kid gets inside, something far more sinister is planned. The goverment plans to fake a story about an earthquake, then destroy 3 blocks of South Park by planting bombs underneath the town, because inside the UFO, there is toxic waste that can turn anyone into a Nazi Zombie. It has spread all over town. After telling it to Randy via a recording device that the New Kid has found, Randy takes the picture and the New Kid takes it to the Goth Kids. Along the way trying to look Goth, the New Kid is interrupted by the Elves, then goes along with them, to reveal their leader, Kyle Broflovski. Among the members are Jimmy & Stan. Kyle needs to New Kid to prove his trust by smashing up the KKK banners all across town. So the New Kid has a choice to recruit the Goth Kids either for the KKK or the Elves. The game will play out the same, the only difference where you recruit the Goth Kids to is the enemy. If you recruit them to the KKK, the Elves become your enemies & vice versa. Either way, in the school, after you defeat either Kyle or Cartman, both the KKK & the Elves find a writing on Clyde's desk that says «Check my locker». It's revealed that Clyde is the one who took the Stick & Craig joins Clyde, betraying the KKK, & Clyde gets rid of both kingdoms, so the KKK & the Elves are forced to work together to defeat him, but it's bedtime, and so everyone is forced to go to bed. Later that night, New Kid's underpants are being stolen by the Underpants Gnomes. He attacks them, but gets shrunk and has to find the Gnome Warlock, who has the power to either shrink or grow humans. After the fight, the Warlock gives the New Kid the magic pixie dust that gives the New Kid the ability to shrink or grow at anytime.

The next day, the New Kid goes to Kyle's place & it's revealed that the Governons & the Pirates have been recruited to fight, only one more faction is left for them to join is the Girls. Kyle & Cartman ask the New Kid to get the Girls to join the alliance of the KKK & the Elves. Annie gets the New Kid to the conference room held at the Girls restroom at the playground. In order to get the Girls to join the team that Kyle & Cartman have made, they have to find the information who is the whore behind it, in three steps.

1. Pretend to be Bebe's boyfriend to one of the double-crossing girls.
2. Disguise as a girl to get an abortion, then get the files, with the help of Randy Marsh.
3. Give the information to the Girls, which needs to be translated from French to English.

After getting the information, the New Kid needs to translate it to English, by going into Canada. But before he could do that, he needs to get a photo for a passport that Cartman gives. After getting past the border, not to mention defeating a pedophile photographer, it's the matter of getting the information to be translated. After meeting the Prince of Canada & his wife in Ottawa, they see that the information can be translated only by the Minister of Montreal, who is stuck in a cave. So the New Kid kills the bishop of Banff and gives it to the prince, who cowardly runs away. The New Kid gives the information to the Duke of Winnipeg, who tells the New Kid that he needs to see the two monks in Vancouver, who turn out to be Terrance & Phillip, the most popular stars of Canada. They both teach him the most powerful fart move yet:Nagasaki, which can destroy walls that were impossible to break earlier and give you access to areas you've never been to before. After freeing the Minister, he translates the message, and the New Kid is declared the Hero of Canada. He goes back to the Girls at the U.S., gives them the translated message, and the Girls agree to join the fight. Once the team reaches Clyde's fortress, they fight through it, killing everyone in sight, including the traitorous Craig, and travel inside Mr.Slave in order to defuse a snuke that will destroy South Park, in addition to meeting the trio à la Lemmiwinks' journey through Mr.Slave, all accompanied by a song, similar to the Ballad of Lemmiwinks. After all this, the boys find Clyde, who uses the toxic waste found in the UFO to revive Chef (Even though Chef was ressurected by the Super Adventure Club as Darth Chef). After defeating Chef with the power of farts, the New Kid makes Clyde defenseless and Cartman sends Clyde falling to his doom. All is well, until the goverment shows up and gets the stick, and the leader tells some crap that you can't skip, literally. Even Cartman breaks the fourth wall by asking if they could skip this. After the leader tells one of the kids to get the Stick to get whatever they want, no one goes there, except for Princess Kenny, who ends up betraying Cartman. The New Kid fights off Kenny, who dies, but not for long after inhaling some toxic waste, making him a zombie. The good guys try to defeat Kenny, but he doesn't stop reviving himself. So the only option left is to fart on Kenny's balls, breaking the rule of not farting on a man's balls. Why? 'Cause after learning a new fart move, the person who taught it to you says to never fart on a a man's balls. But the New Kid does fart on Kenny's balls, getting rid of the virus, effectively killing Kenny, and saving the town. After this, Cartman throws the Stick into Stark's Pond and decides what to play next, but the New Kid finally says Cartman's trademark line «Screw you guys, I'm going home», then leaving, ending the story of South Park:The Stick of Truth. Holy crap, this story is quite long. Actually, it was written by Matt Stone & Trey Parker, the show's creators, and a damn fine job they did. There are some bad moments here and there, but all in all, it's a great story.

Gameplay & Other Stuff:
Now that the plot is out of the way, let's get into the gameplay. South Park:The Stick of Truth is an RPG game, much like Final Fantasy & other similar games. you can select your difficulty in the options menu at any time,  from Casual, which is the easiest, to Hardcore, which is the hardest difficulty. You can customize your character at the beginning of the game to your liking, skin, hair, clothes, etc.. You can also find some customization items along the way, like wigs, makeup, glasses, headgear, body clothes & gloves. Thing is, you cannot customize your facial features. If you put on that skin you wanted, you're staying with it. Granted, everyone's face in the show kinda looked the same, but I would have liked a few more features to customize my character with. Other than that, I love the character customization in this game. It's not as deep as, say, Saints Row, but it still gets the job done. At the beginning of the game you can choose between 4 classes:Fighter, Mage, Thief & Jew. I'm gonna assume you're familiar with Fighter, Mage & Thief classes. The Jew class works like this:the more you're hurt, the more damage you do to your enemies. You can use the Dreidel & few other Jewish style weapons to your advantage. Each class has their own set of weapons. You can also find different weapons to add into your arsenal and also equip certain trinkets to make your attacks stronger. There's melee weapons & the weapons that you can shoot at your enemies, out of battle, it stuns some of them, but in battle, it damages enemies. I'll talk about the battle system later down the road. The enemies in the mountain town of South Park are completely visible on the field. As such, you could fight them, or ignore them completely, though, being an RPG game, you have to fight them and eventually level up. You can also take a dump at any toilet. I'm dead serious. I've beaten the game once as a Fighter and now I'm playing as a Thief. I also beat the game as a Jew. And with each class, you'll find new items that normally cannot be found as a Fighter, but can be found as someone else, like a Mage or a Thief.

That's an example of where you can go in the quiet little mountain town of South Park.

The headgear, body armor, and gloves will give you extra armor, depending on which ones you equip. The makeup, glasses & wigs are just there for decoration, although you need to wear some of them to progess further down the story. You can find Timmy flags located all around South Park. With it, you can use Sir Timmy's Fast Travel Service to travel from one part of town to another incase you don't feel like travelling around on foot. Once you find one, you can use it free of charge. Throughout the game, you can find familiar faces of South Park, most of which can become friends on Facebook. Sometimes, it's simple to add them as a friend by simply talking to them. Other times, however, you need to have a sufficient amount of friends, or do one of the side quests that they offer you.

Controls: You use the W,A,S,D keys to move and Left Shift to run. I never let go of that key because regular walking feels very slow. You use the Q key to switch between Shoot, Buddy Command, Anal Probe & Gnome Dust. press the F key to use that function. As for farts, you use the E key to switch between Dragonshout, Cup-a-Spell, Sneaky Squeaker & Nagasaki. Then press the G key to fart that power. Speaking of farting, you can do that with the Right Mouse button, and melee attack using the Left Mouse Button.

An example of a battle as Mage. Speaking of which, the battle system is turn based. As for the enemies, you have Elves at the beginning of the game, in the middle & at the end of the game there are Nazi Zombies to fight, and occassionally giant rats, Visitors, underpants gnomes & even Nazi Zombie fetuses. No, I'm not kidding, you can actually fight Nazi Zombie fetuses. The New Kid & your partner have different types of attacks.

There are 6 Buddies that you can unlock:Butters, Kenny, Stan, Jimmy, Kyle & Cartman. Each buddy has a special move that can be used once per turn. For example, Butters, the paladin, can heal you if you're really hurt. Kenny can flash his boobs to enemies to decrease their attack rate, except to those who are immune to this. Stan can use his dog, Sparky, to bite an enemy and decrease his defence rate. Jimmy can use his flute to gain PP for everyone, and also get the New Kid to places that he's never been to before outside of the battle. Kyle rallies the party for combat and Cartman throws a powerful magic missile at his target to gross it out. There are certain items that can help you during the battle. This includes Shock, Bleed, Poison, Fire & Ice abilities, similar to Final Fantasy VII. The shock ability can slow down enemies & decrease their defence, same goes for Ice. Bleed, Poison & Fire items can decrease health of the enemies as the fight goes. If you see light blue text saying «WEAK!» over the enemy, it means that he has a weakness to that weapon. You mainly use the mouse buttons for regular attacks, but for the PP attacks, there is most likely a quick-time event where you have to press the right key at the right time, or just mash it repeatedely. You also have to time your button presses, even when doing regular attacks, similar to the likes of Paper Mario.

Though there are some powerups that the enemies will use:

Reflecting — The enemies reflect your projectiles.

Riposting — Same as Reflect, only with melee attacks.

Immune — The enemy is immune to that attack.

Regeneration — The enemy regenerates some of it's health.

Cloning — Only Craig does this in battle. The clones are weaker than the real Craig.

There are also PP moves, which are special moves that do more damage than regular attacks. Though they waste your power points, or PP as it's called in the game. Depending on the class you've chosen at the start of the game, the New Kid is going to have a different set of PP moves. Butters & Kyle are probably my favorite characters to use, because Butters' hammer attack is quite powerful and the PP attacks are just as strong, if not stronger. I love Kyle's Arrow Rain move especially. Princess Kenny is my least favorite of the 6, because Kenny's arrow shot is pathetically weak towards the end of the game, but his PP attacks more than make up for it. My favorite power moves are Professor Chaos & Rain of Arrows, because 1. You can choose either to drain your foes' health somehow or give you and Butters a shield; and 2. The perfect attack of the Rain of Arrows can cause a lot of damage to all enemies in sight, in addition to making them bleed.

There are items that will help you in battle, like the Cure Potion, which will, as the name implies, cure everything hazardous, except Dire AIDS, which can be cured at the Canadian Hospital & regular AIDS, the Power Lotion & the Health Lotion, which will heal your PP & health, respectively. Most of these potions can be bought from a shop.

One thing that I like about the Stick of Truth, is that whenever you end, all your health & PP automatically refill to 100% in the next battle, so this makes it easier than most RPG's. The bosses are also a sight to behold. They are all fun, except for Al Gore, who takes forever to die and his goons are too strong to take down, even with the proper weapon combination, though I did manage to beat him  with ease using Jimmy as a partner. This game has a lot of sidequests to complete. If you complete them, you unlock friends for Facebook, and by getting a large amount of friends you also get perks, which can be used to upgrade your battle performance. There's also a lot of collectibles, from junk to Chinpokomon. The game can take up from 13 to 15 hours to complete, depending on where you complete side quests or not, and 15 hours is good enough for me.

Do I even need to say anything about the graphics? They are great, for the show that it tries to represent. This game, like «Let's Go Tower Defense Play!» & «Scott Tenoman's Revenge», uses simplistic South Park animation as opposed to 3D models. It really fits the style of the show. The presentation is also great, with authentic voices from Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Mona Marshall & April Stewart, just to name a few. It actually makes you feel like you're a part of a South Park episode. The music itself is great, but it gets a bit repetitive after a while. The more you hear the music tracks in worlds & battles, the more you wish this game had an option for custom soundtracks. I have to give them credit for using the original music composer from the cartoon. Also, I wish I could replay the cutscenes, because a lot of them are pretty amusing. And I have to applaud Matt & Trey for adding almost every piece of South Park mythology when making this game. You'll be seeing lots of familiar characters, landmarks, and hear some songs from seasons 1-17, like «Montage», «Kyle's Mom is a Bitch», and even «Let's Fighting Love». Also, most of the quotes you will hear in the game are ripped right from the episodes of the show. You can also hear the trailers for movies playing in theaters. Also, you can hear a part of «Not Without My Anus» on Cartman's TV. The other TV's in the neighborhood have episodes of Terrance & Phillip, the pilot episode of «Queef Sisters», or the Martha Stewart Show. This is a minor nitpick, but where did all of the content in the promotional screenshots go? We were supposed to see the school in mint condition at some point, but even after finding out that Clyde stole the Stick of Truth, it remains to be an utter mess for the rest of the game. I hope Matt & Trey will release DLC that will expand the story even further. Speaking of DLC, people who pre-ordered the game received the Ultimate Fellowship Pack or the Super Samurai Spaceman Pack, both of which come with exclusive costumes, each with a range of bonus abilities. The Ultimate Fellowship Pack was a pre-order bonus at selected retailers, while the Super Samurai Spaceman Pack is a pre-order bonus at other retailers. Pre-ordering on Ubishop grants both DLC packs. They are not really exciting, though.

Overall, I do think it's the best South Park game yet, and RPG fans are in for a treat. If you're just getting into the RPG genre, give this game a try. The story is great, the gameplay is great, the battle system & the boss fights are great, minus Al Gore. I'm warning you though, anything South Park related is absolutely, no questions asked, without a doubt, NOT intended for kids. The Stick of Truth is rated M for a reason! It has abortion scenes, anal probing, and a lot of bad language, though most of the scenes were censored in the European & Australian console releases. If you haven't played this game as of now, do it! It's a great game.

Asking for career advice

When I’m thinking about my future I cannot say for sure what it will be like. Many of teenagers do not know what they want to become.  But I am sure that the most important things for me in future will be my profession and family. My opinion is that good education is necessary to get a good job. Profession is a very important choice that will define all of my future life. I am glad that my parents support me.

I've decided to go for Linguistics, as it is a perfect job for me, and I'm really good at English, French & Spanish. I think that studying languages is my cup of tea. I can only say that as long as it doesn't involve a very complicated language, like Japanese, I will take the Linguistics job. I know the letter structure in English, I know lots of words in Spanish & I can translate long sentences in French, so Linguistics will be pretty simple for me. It's very important for me to have good or above education if I want to take the Linguistics job. Otherwise, I won't be able to take the job. Sometimes, good education is not enough to take the job. I need to have some other aspects of life which can influence the job. For this reason, I'm turning to more experienced professionals for career advice.

Though here's the thing:I am not a perfect French or Spanish speaker, obviously, as I always tend to mispronounce words in French & Spanish, and doing such thing in Linguistics can lead me to lowering my salary or even being fired from the job. And being fired from a job that you love is the worst thing that could happen.

Overall, while I do lack a bit in French & Spanish, and a bit of English, I do think that Linguistics is a perfect job for me. What do I have to do in order to achieve perfection in Linguistics? Which job is the best one to go to after Linguistics? What drawbacks do the jobs have? What course do I need to take in order to improve my pronounciation? Feel free to answer me.

After leaving school

After I have finished learning at school, I'm not sure what to do next, but I'll try to think for myself. There are a lot of opportunities to earn money, but I only have the skills for a few of them. With that said, here's my list of jobs I would like to do after leaving school.



First off, I would like to go to the university to study linguistics. It sounds very interesting, as I have good skills in English, in addition to French & Spanish. It's not really a job, just an expansion to school education, but it's something that I've always wanted to do.

Then there's being a repo man. It's interesting how I get to drive rental cars to the garage after their rent period expries. Whether it's driving it yourself, or getting it via a tow truck incase they have alarms installed, it is good fun to do. Though I need to have a driver's license in order to do this kind of job.

Next, there's being a nurse. It sounds like a simple job, how you just give instruments to doctors during surgery operations, or just giving a cure to people, it's quite interesting. It is also the most loved job in Canada, Britain & the United States, next to being a doctor. Though I need to have a good education.

A no-effort review from Mike Matei

Hello guys. Welcome to my very first text commentary on videos made by random people. I will mostly use ones that I think are bad. So, let's get started on Mike Matei's review on all South Park games for the Nintendo 64, made in 2009.

For those people who don't know, Mike Matei is a part of Cinemassacre, which has a lot of shows, like Board James, YKWBS (You Know What's Bullsh*t), and the most famous, the Angry Video Game Nerd. Mike Matei is known as being a part of Board James, under the name "Motherf***er Mike", and is also famous for being the title card writer for AVGN episodes, he even played roles in AVGN episodes. Enough history lessons, let's get on with the video.

0:07 - 0:31 It begins with Mike telling us that he was a huge fan of the South Park TV show, and he's saying despite mentioning that Nintendo leans towards kid-friendly material, and he figured that South Park games would be uninteresting because it's watered down, but he says he's wrong that the games ARE faithful to the show in terms of violence, and wonders how the gameplay stands out now. OK, nothing wrong here.

0:36 He mentions that the games are also released on Playstation & Dreamcast, but he doesn't acknowledge that they were also released on home computers.

0:45 - 1:02 Wikipedia facts.

1:05 - 1:28 Here he explains the plot and also mentions how the only enemies in the game are turkeys. *hits buzzer* Nope. There are more enemies later on the game apart from turkeys. And remember when he said he was a huge fan of the show? This statement pretty much retcons what he said about the show earlier. Incase you want to know, the first part of the game is based off the 8th episode of the 1st season, Starvin' Marvin. The major element of the episode, apart from the character Starvin' Marvin, is that loads of mutant turkeys are attacking the town of South Park.

1:37 - 1:43 He mentions that the gameplay is bad because there is very little variation, you just shoot stuff and that is it, he wanted puzzles or something to solve in the game. Well, he was unaware that a lot of FPS games before & after South Park were all about shooting stuff.

2:12 - 2:30 He mentions you have to hit the turkey boss in the head to do damage, but he missed the point that you can also shoot into it's ass, making the fight easier. He also mentions that some people were able to win in the boss fight, but Mike didn't due to the terrible controls. He mentioned earlier that the controls would become very wonky if you aim high or low. He could have easily turned off center return, that would make the camera stay where it was. It is very useful for the turkey boss if you do it the hard way.

3:29 - 3:49 Mike starts talking about the multiplayer mode. He mentions that the frame rate becomes poor if you have 4 players and he mentions that he haven't tried that himself because nobody wanted to play it. Really? I've heard from multiple people that they enjoyed the 4-player multiplayer in this game.

3:52 - 4:23 He starts talking about how he has mixed opinions about the N64 in general, gives an overall opinion on South Park saying he doesn't recommend the game.

4:25 Mike starts talking about Chef's Luv Shack. There's not much I can say for this one, it's pretty accurate for the most part.

5:28 He says that the mini-games are copies of classic arcade games, like Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Fire & Warlords, though he thinks it's Circus. God, he can't even get the games right!

5:43 He mentions that the Chickenlover minigame was the funniest, where you have to guess where the Chickenlover hides in. Here, he doesn't refer to Chickenlover by name. Again, retcons Mike's sentence where he's a huge fan of the show.

6:07 - 6:33 He mentions that Chef's Luv Shack is the best South Park game. He doesn't recommend it for average gamers, he says they should play Mario Party instead. I honestly didn't find it to be very appealing.

6:34 Mike talks about the last game in this review, South Park Rally. He starts comparing it to Mario Kart, where South Park Rally replaces Nintendo characters with South Park characters, and shortly after says that this game is the worst.

7:11 He explains that the goal in some races of South Park Rally is to go through different checkpoints.  He says that there's no order in which you collect the checkpoints and you race all over randomly. *hits buzzer again* Actually, you go in a numerical order of checkpoints, 1, 2, 3 & 4. You just have to find the most suitable pathway to the next checkpoint. It actually inspired games like Midnight Club with the checkpoints spread all around the track.

7:26 Next he complains about trying to turn corners. He steers too freaking late, twice! He should have used the breaks more often. Also, he says it's carelessly designed. Yeah, like this video!

7:46 He said earlier the objective of Rally Days #2, where the objective is to collect the trophy and then go through the checkpoints. He says you have to go through all of the checkpoints. Well, he didn't say it, but he thinks that's the objective. Actually, you don't have to go through all of the checkpoints. You just have to go up to Checkpoint 4 as long as you have the trophy.

8:08 Though, if you would have picked a racer who is heavy & fast (Cartman) you could actually steal the trophy from them very easily, though it's also very annoying how you immediately lose the trophy if you touch a single part of the opponent's car. And FYI, there are more race types later on.

8:22 He mentions that there are unlockable characters which would be a reason to keep playing if the game didn't suck. But what about the characters that were not in the N64 version? Like Mrs.Cartman, Sheila Broflovski & Scuzzlebutt? Maybe he didn't have the PS1/Dreamcast/PC versions. And also, he didn't mention that the games doesn't save between the Championship races, which, to me, is dissapointing.

8:34 He mentions how Acclaim was more interested in marking the South Park name and getting kids to buy it-WHAT?! Did you just say kids should buy the games? You just said earlier that they included enough piss, sh** & blood! They are rated M for a reason. Did you forget that South Park is the most controversial cartoon back in the late 90's? Kids watched it, sure, but mothers protested Comedy Central against it. And I'm sure a few kids bought the games as well. Oh well, moving on.

So, the video ends with Mike telling people to play Turok 2 (Seriously? That game sucked balls), Mario Party (makes sense) & Super Mario Kart (Wrong system dude) instead, and tells people just to watch South Park and not to play these games.

Overall, I think this review was not very terrible, but it needed a lot more work. I'm sure that you may say that this is not as good as most of the text-commentaries out there, but hey, it's the first one I made so far. Rate, comment, and be sure to follow my blog! If this post becomes successful, I'll be sure to make more like this in the future.

Friendship manual

This is the manual on how to maintain friendship. This manual is intended for intermediate level friends. It's intended for self-study. Make sure to follow these steps one-by-one.


 Section 1. How to Maintain a Friendship
 You have to show your appreciation to your friends. Even when you knew them for a long time, you can take them for granted. Sometimes this isn't the case. For example, always thank him or her whenever he or she does something helpful for you, return favors to your friend whenever he or she goes out of his or her way to help you, buy them their favorite food, lunch or even a birthday card for him or her, which always results in you doing a nice thing to your friend, and tell them how much you appreciate them. 

Showing interest in your friend's life is very important. When your friends tell you about their favorite things, you have to be a very good listener, meaning that you shouldn't get distracted by anything which makes you fidget to them. You can take your time to hear what they're saying and if they ask for advice, it's best to give advice to them. Also, you can show your support and interest to your friends if they are involved in an activity that they really care about, by asking them if you would like to go with them.

Building trust in your friend is also quite important. It may sound easy, but it can be difficult assuming you don't trust anyone. In order to trust your friends you must not gossip/spread rumors about your friend, otherwise you will hurt their feelings. Keeping your promises is a must, even if it's something as small as showing up on time at some place. And don't go behind your friends' backs. This will make your relationship worse if you go behind your friends' backs. Keeping secrets safe will also increase your relationship status. If you tell something secret to your friends, make sure you tell them to not to tell them to other people.

Have fun together with your friends.This can be something as simple as learning something new with your friends, like a foreign language, an exercise that you haven't done before, or  watch a movie you never watched before. You can also make an open invitation, find something they would enjoy. Throw a party, which can be something as simple as celebrating a holiday, birthday, or nothing in particular. You can also plan a fun evening, where you have dinner with your friends, play a few video games, watch your favorite movies and much more.



Section 2. Being a Friend When Things Get Tough


You have to support each other when things get rough.  Sometimes friendships can get rocky or friends can have a hard time dealing with their own personal problems.The best ways to solve this is by demonstrating your support. by telling your friends that you're here for them and let them know when they need your help. Also, offer to listen about their problems, or even provide distractions by spending time with them so they don't feel alone.

If you know your friend is struggling, do what you can to help.  You can call or drop by to check in on your friend regularly if they are having a hard time, let your friend use you as a shoulder to cry on by giving them tissues, bring over soup, a good book, or fun movies that they can watch if one of your friends is sick.

Handle arguments maturely. Don't raise your voice or storm out when you're having an argument. Sit down and talk through the problems. Don't complain about your friend to other people, especially before you've talked to them about the conflict. If they have no idea that you're mad at them, it will be confusing if they hear that you're talking about them behind their back. Use "I" statements when you're talking to your friend. For example, you might say, "I feel left out when you invite all our friends out to dinner but don't include me." This makes the statement about your feelings instead of blaming them. Apologize if you've done something wrong. If you have hurt your friend's feelings, take responsibility and say, "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings."

Maintain contact. You may or may not feel very bad when your friend is moving away to a different town. Either way, you have to keep in touch with your friends by calling your friends regularly by phone, schedule video chats online with Skype, so that you could showcase what game you're playing or what activities you found interesting for your friend to give a try. Visit whenever you can when you've got the chance to visit the town or city your friend currently lives in. Make the time to see your friend. Plan a day of fun sightseeing together, or ask them to show you their favorite things to do.

My teenage problems

My problems as a teenager.

I don't have too many problems, my family are understanding and I always turn to my mother & father to look for solutions to my problems.

I usually don't get depressed all the time. But sometimes, I get very depressed, especially after a rough school day, when I have so much homework to do. I get tired sometimes, and when I am tired, I usually exercise to get my energy back. Depression is my minor problem. I don't encounter it a lot, but it really gives me too much pressure.

As for cyber addiction, it's my main problem. Sometimes I go to Youtube to cheer myself up after doing my homework, or play video games. But I play them way too much. I usually go to bed and give my eyes a rest after a few hours, because I'm afraid to actually get red eyes and lose my eyesight. At times, being on my computer for too long actually gave me headaches. I just sometimes get glued to the Internet. Only when I have important things to do, I log off. But I just can't stop thinking about the Internet.

Overall, my problems as a teenager are not that bad. I feel sort of different compared to the other teenagers of my age. Yes, I know life can't be without problems, without stress, but I think I will find a way to solve all my problems.

My HTC One X+ review

I'm going to talk about HTC One X+, the phone that I'm planning to get for my birthday.

What is it? It's an Android phone. It has a 4.8 inch screen with a 1280×720 resolution, with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, up to 1.7 GHz. It has internal memory up to 64 GB, which is great from my astetical view point. This phone can be compared to Samsung Galaxy SIII and iPhone 5, which mostly have the same features, except iPhone 5 has the iOS operating system. It has the Android 4.1 "Jellybean" operating system installed on it, but you can upgrade it up to 4.2. The phone looks very slick in design, almost like iPhone's half-brother.

What do you use it for? First off, you can use it to make phone calls, obviously, take pictures with a camera, plan a route on the GPS, install games & apps off the Google Play Store, it can do everything you expect an Android phone to do.

Advantages:Like I mentioned earlier, it has a 4.8 inch screen, which is absolutely fine for me, because I have large hands, and I don't feel like tapping things with a small screen. The camera is great, it can take pictures in a very good quality, you zoom in up to 5 megapixels. The video quality is not bad either, it records 720p HD videos. It can run both old & new Android games quite well, with nice graphics & without any slowdown at all. It also has 67% more performance than the regular HTC One X, which is a very nice feature.

Disadvantages:The only problem I noticed about the phone is that putting in SD cards & SIM cards can be quite insufficient, like you have to pull out the back cover of the phone, and you have to be very careful in order not to break it.

Overall, is this phone worth buying? Absolutely. Sure, it's a little expensive, but with this phone, you'll get your money worth out of it. It's a really good phone to have, and I can't put it any other way.

People that I would like to meet.

First off, the person who I would like to meet and ask some questions is Nelson Mandela. I admire him because he was the President of South Africa (1994-1999), and he was a South African anti-apartheid activist. He also fought against the apartheid and unfair political system of sygregation of the black from the white people. He even was imprisoned for  27 years because he stood his ground and believed in what he did, had his principals.

My question for him would be:"How did you survive being imprisoned for all those 27 years?", "What helped you to be persistant in this struggle against the unfair political system apartheid? What helped you not to give up in this fight?" and "What was the most powerful idea which gave you motivation and drive to fight against apartheid?".

I'd also like to talk to Steve Jobs. I consider him a very interesting personality because he was a technician at Atari Inc. in Los Gatos, California. He was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade game Breakout. Not only that, but he was the co-founder of Apple Inc. along with Steve Wozniak. Jobs was a demanding perfectionist. 

My questions are:"How did you create the Macintosh operating system?" "During what times did you fail?" "What gave you strength to go back again into buisness after failures?"

I would absolutely love to meet Matt Groening, the creator of the comic stip "Life in Hell", and the prime-time cartoons "The Simpsons" & "Futurama". He attended the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal school which he described as "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every weirdo in the Northwest." Groening has been nominated for 25 Emmy awards, and had won eleven:ten for the Simpsons, and one for Futurama in the "Outstanding Animated Program (for programming one hour or less)" category. The questions for him are:"What have gotten you into making cartoons?", "How did you react to the cancellation of Futurama?" and "What was the hardest time for you in making the Simpsons or Futurama?"

If I was in Wonderland

I'm sure a lot of you readers have read the book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", written by Lewis Carroll, a book that was written almost 200 years ago, later being very popular with adults & children. I have read a couple of chapters from the book, and it was so good, that I decided to imagine if I was in Wonderland.


If I went to Wonderland, I would like to meet a catterpillar, so he looks so exotic, smoking his hookah, being sternly & slowly, and being so alienated and asking puzzling questions. If I met Sir Catterpillar, I would tell him that smoking is bad for health. I would also ask him for advice. I would also like to go to a tea party with the March Hare, the Hatter & the Dormouse. That would be great. Not to mention, get into that queen's croquet-ground to meet the King & Queen of Hearts.


Well, that was my imagination if I was in Wonderland. Sorry if it was too short for all of you, but that's all best moments that I remember from the book. If you have your imagination if you were in Wonderland, please write in the comments.

My holidays

                                                 My winter holidays

During winter holidays, we took a train to Crimea, Ukraine. From there we went to Sudak,  a little town with sanatories and where the Genuess fortress is located. I had a lot of fun here.

There is no cons about this holiday!

The things I liked are the massage bathroom, swimming pool with real sea water, the Yalta city with the cable car ride & much more!

                                  I even took a trip to the Palace of Voronczov. Not to mention, the                                                             Nikitski Botanic Garden.

My winter holidays were so great, that I couldn't remember what I forgot!

On the other hand, my summer holidays were a mixed bag.

                                                  My summer holidays

 

I spent my holidays at my granny's place. They were a mixed bag. They were both positive & negative.

First off, we start with the pros of my holidays.

I did lots of exercises, did the work at the yard, but my favorite happens to be the moment I went to the S.A Esenin museum with my parents. We took photograps of the Oka river. Next, we took photos of his house, then his statue, and finally the church where Esenin was christened. It was great. Aside from that, I also played games on my Android phone, mainly Sonic CD & Angry Birds & after a trip around the S.A Esenin museum, we bought some ice cream (me & my mom, but not for my dad due to the fact he has diabeetus).

On the other hand, I also had a few cons. Every day, when I do exercises, or work at the yard, it gets the same every day & it gets incredibly boring. Also, I had a few arguments with my grandma, where I was afraid that the insects such as wasps, bees & bumble-bees are trying to kill me. She even called me a wimp for that!

Well, that were my summer holidays. Like I said, they were a mixed bag. I couldn't say much more about it because that's all I had in my brain.