Before video games, kids played pretend. They didn't need a graphics card or CPU to show them a world of wonder and high fantasy. Get a long enough stick and, boom, you're a wizard. Put up a tent and some cardboard in the backyard and you've got a fortress. Playing pretend can be powerful, and nowhere is that more true than in the quiet mountain town of South Park.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is the story of a children's game gone horribly, awfully, disgustingly awry. It opens with you, the new kid, being invited to partake in a war where humans and elves battle for control of an all-powerful relic that allows its wielder to control the universe. Only, the "war" is just swinging cardboard swords, the "elves" are kids wearing the sort of cheap plastic ears you see in Halloween stores, and the "all-powerful relic" is a stick. Just an ordinary stick. It's all pretend. Or is it?

During your quest to claim the Stick of Truth, you'll explore alien vessels, witness your parents having sex, perform an abortion on a man, fight Nazi zombies, crawl up an anus, and face off against a shadowy government organization, and all of it is very real. But you and your friends are still kids, playing pretend. Your paladin friend doesn't really have a Hammer of Justice, he has a ball-peen hammer taken from his home. Your wizard friend isn't casting Magic Missile, he's throwing menstrual pads. And you, dear child, you're not swinging a "vibroblade," you're wielding a dildo.