If unreleased footage was made of strawberries, we’d all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.
If you were raised with a Nintendo 64 controller in one hand and a sleeve of Pop Tarts in the other like me, you almost certainly remember 1998’s South Park video game — one of the funniest, most entertaining, and simultaneously repetitive and frustrating first person shooters ever created. And if not much has changed with your gaming/eating habits nearly 20 years later, then you’re undoubtedly familiar with last year’s epic (and simultaneously repetitive) role-player, South Park: The Stick of Truth.
But as it just so happens, Trey Parker & Co. actually had plans to release a follow-up to their controversial N64 FPS for the original Xbox back in the early 2000s, with Oregon studio Buzz Monkey Software at the helm. The game was never announced and never released, however, until it was found on an Xbox development kit purchased at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo earlier this year.
Described by the man who discovered it as a “Simpsons Hit & Run ripoff,” (Simpsons did it!) the unreleased game plays out very much like a version of Grand Theft Auto centered in the South Park universe.
Lucky for us, the guys over at HappyConsoleGamer have gotten ahold of the dev kit and posted some gameplay footage on their Youtube channel for all to enjoy/cringe at. The footage is pretty rough to say the least –not to mention buggy as all Hell — but the unnamed South Park game does feature a split-screen mode and a combat system somewhat (in the loosest definition possible) reminiscent of the one found in The Stick of Truth. Speaking of which, you might recall that a Stick of Truth sequel, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, was announced for Xbox One, PS4, and PC at E3 2015, and wouldn’t it be incredible if that game borrowed a little influence from the GTA world? Roaming gangs of fifth graders, hijacking handicars, prostitutes that all looked exactly like Cartman’s mom…
The possibilities are endless, is what I’m saying.
Check out the entire HappyConsoleGamer segment on the unreleased South Park game above, then head below for some additional footage.
Source: IGN
