My Top 15 Episodes of South Park

After going through every episode of South Park (through season 13) in order for the last year and a half, I decided that it would be a fun idea to pick out my favorite episodes. Below is a list of my 15 favorite episodes (in order), followed by some honorable mentions. It was really hard to pick favorites: I originally was only going to do a top 10, but I had to go with 15 because I didn't feel right weeding anymore out. Also, I did rank them 1-15 (from most favorite to least favorite), but many of these episodes could easily be changed in the order either way. Also, I have not seen any episodes from season 14 (the current season) yet, so none of these could be included in the list. And so, with all that in mind, here are my favorite 15 episodes of South Park:


1. Chinpokomon (Season 3)

As someone who admittedly was totally obsessed with Pokemon as a kid, this episode automatically got a special place in my heart just because of its subject matter. But it's the two Japanese men in the episode that really make this the funniest episode of South Park to me.

2. Make Love, Not Warcraft (Season 10)

Perhaps the most well known episode, this one is a brilliant parody of World of Warcraft, and Blizzard (the company who created WoW) contributed to help make the episode. A truly hilarious episode from start to finish.

3. Trapped in the Closet (Season 9)

This episode exposes and mocks Scientology for what it really is (a scam), and features Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, and funniest of all, R. Kelly (none of which are actually voiced by the real person, obviously).

4. Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy (Season 10)

Ike (a kindergartner) gets involved romantically with his teacher (who happens to be a young, attractive woman), but no one in society seems to mind because it's a female teacher. The police, on being informed of this, joke that they should award him the "luckiest little boy in the world award." This episode also rips Dog the bounty hunter, and features the catchphrase "Nice."

5. Go God Go (parts I and XII) (Season 10)

While many South Park episodes rip various religions, the South Park creators once again show a sense of equality (of making fun of everything) by poking fun at atheism. The episode centers around Cartman and the lengths he goes to to try to acquire a Nintendo Wii without having to wait for it to come out. Also parodies the old TV sci-fi show "Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century."

6. Canada on Strike (Season 12)

The country of Canada decides to go on strike to teach the world a lesson about respecting them. I personally love any time Canadians are portrayed on South Park, and this one also has the famous YouTube battle scene.

7. Christian Rock Hard (Season 7)

Realizing that it's easier to make it in the Christian music industry than in the Mainstream, Cartman decides to start a Christian worship band to win a bet with Kyle that he can get a platinum album first. Also makes fun of celebrity musicians complaining that downloading music illegally is greatly hurting them financially.

8. Scott Tenorman Must Die (Season 5)

Cartman will go to any lengths to get a back at an older boy who has been constantly tricking him. Also features an appearance by Radiohead (actually voiced by themselves).

9. Simpsons Already Did It (Season 6)

Butters, aka Professor Chaos, tries to devise evil schemes to spread chaos throughout South Park, but every time he thinks of something, he realizes it's already been done on an episode of the Simpsons. The boys are also afraid they may have accidentally killed one of their teachers. Features the short but funny "Sea People" song.

10. Night of the Living Homeless (Season 11)

More and more homeless people start showing up in South Park begging for "change" (like loose coins). This problem soon grows to epic proportions.

11. Fishsticks (Season 13)

Jimmy (with the "help" of Cartman) invents the greatest joke in the history of the world, which everyone loves except for Kanye West, who becomes very angry and eventually even questions his own identity because he doesn't understand it. Also rips on Carlos Mencia and features a hilarious song.

12. All About Mormons? (Season 7)

When Stan meets a new Mormon family that has just moved into town, he learns all about the history and roots of Mormonism.

13. The Red Badge of Gayness (Season 3)

Cartman makes a bet with the other boys that this year he can get the South to win in the yearly South Park civil war reenactment.

14. Fat Camp (Season 4)

Because he is overweight, Cartman is sent to fat camp, while the boys learn that Kenny will do anything for money. Also contains "The Prostitute Song" by Chef (featuring James Taylor), which is my favorite Chef song of all time.

15. 4th Grade (Season 4)

The boys and their classmates, which have all now gone on to fourth grade, wish they could go back to third grade, while their new teacher tries to figure out how to control and communicate to them. Features the song "Third Grade" by Eric Cartmen.



Honorable Mentions:

-Gnomes (Season 2)

Step 1: Steal Underpants.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit.

-Rainforest Schmainforest (Season 3)

An episode featuring the voice of Jennifer Aniston as a class teacher that makes fun of empty-hearted activism just for the sake of being seen as an "activist."

-Cartmanland (Season 5)

After inheriting a huge amount of money, Cartman buys his own amusement park that only he is allowed to go to.

-The New Terrance and Phillip Trailer (Season 6)

This episode gets an honorable mention because of the Russel Crowe show "Fightin' Round the World."

-Douche & Turd (Season 9)

Stan tries to abstain from voting for the new school mascot, but P. Diddy and his "Vote or Die" campaign have other ideas.


Almost every episode of South Park is a good episode, but these are the best of the best (to me). I would love to hear your opinions on my list, as I'm sure some people will disagree with me about what I did or did not include. I welcome any comments/feedback, and would love to see what your favorite episodes of South Park are. Thanks!

Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

Heavy Rain is a PS3 exclusive that differs from most current video games in that it is better described as an interactive movie or drama than a traditional video game. The game focuses heavily on characters and story, and there is no "game over" like traditional games.

Quick Facts:

Platform: PS3
Genre: Interactive drama
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Release Date (NA): February 23, 2010
Rating: M


I have mixed feelings about Heavy Rain, as will be documented in the next few paragraphs. The game came out back in late February, but I just finally got a chance to play through it now. Overall, I was actually a little disappointed with the game. I've followed the game a lot since well before it was released, so I pretty much knew what I was getting into. So with that in mind, I wouldn't say it was a bad game, but it definitely didn't exceed my expectations from what I had seen like I was hoping it would. The majority of the media reviews were pretty positive, but I would say I'm somewhere more neutral on my feelings towards this game.

On the plus side, the graphics in the cutscenes were amazing, and the story was decent, but I still didn't feel that it was captivating enough for a game that is almost completely based on story and not gameplay. As for the actual non-cutscene gameplay (aka walking around between action-packed cutscenes trying to figure out how to trigger the next one), most of it was awkward and could be boring and confusing at times, and the walking around controls were pretty bad.

Also, on a very negative note, the voice acting was some of the worst I've ever heard in a recent game. Many of the main characters are voiced by French (or other European) people trying to fake American accents, and you can really tell how awful it is at some points. This game is almost completely based on its story and characters and all happens in a present-day American city (Philadelphia, to be precise), so to have the characters have terrible fake American accents really ruined the setting and mood of the game (which is supposed to be very dark). They sound ridiculous. This game is basically an interactive movie, so imagine a movie trying to be serious where most of the cast are French but are pretending to be American and doing really bad accents. Yeah, it would pretty much destroy many of the scenes that are supposed to be serious, and it did the exact same thing in this game.

The story itself wasn't bad. Your actions can determine what happens in the game, and there are many different endings that can be seen depending on what happens in your unique playthrough. Overall though, I have a feeling many of the people got similar endings. Unless you were trying to get your characters killed off on purpose, most of the parts were pretty simple in keeping your person alive and advancing the story in the best possible direction (where everyone survives at the end). The story itself (which I wont mention in detail here) was pretty good for a video game, but like I said before, for a video game that bases itself almost completely on story, it still wasn't amazing. I guess a good way to put it is that even though I liked the story in Heavy Rain, I've played other games with better stories and characters that also had good gameplay to go along with it, which Heavy Rain (for the most part) did not. That basically summarizes my overall feelings towards the majority of the game.

Also, the game isn't very long (it took me around 8-9 hours to beat), so keep that in mind when you see the price tag. A lot of people online say it has great re-playability because you can try to see all the different endings and decisions, but honestly, once I had beaten it I had very little desire to go through it again anytime soon (and I did enjoy it the first time around). I guess that will vary by person though.

With that in mind, there are some good things about the game, and you have to give Quantic Dream and Sony props for trying something new and different in a market that is definitely over-crowded with genres like shooters or RPGs. That is certainly a redeeming quality for Heavy Rain: even though it's only a decent game on its own, it was refreshing to play something different for a change. That's probably the best thing Heavy Rain has going for it.

In Summary:

Pros: decent story, great cutscene graphics, something different than most games

Cons: horrible voice acting, bad non-cutscene gameplay, fairly short game to pay full retail price for


Heavy Rain is best described as an interactive drama that is both innovative and different, but Quantic Dream has a lot of work to do before they perfect the formula that started they with this game (and somewhat with Indigo Prophecy).


Final Score: 3 out of 5

What I'm Playing (5/17/10)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Halo: Reach Beta, Super Paper Mario.

What I'm Playing (5/9/10)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Halo: Reach Beta, Heavy Rain, and Warcraft III (mostly Dota).

What I'm Playing (4/26/10)

Left 4 Dead 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Monster Hunter Tri, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

The Greatest Games of All-Time (according to Metacritic)

When I'm looking for reviews on games, I always immediately go to Metacritic. For anyone who doesn't know, Metacritic is a website that takes most (if not all) of the major reviews of a game (and other forms of media) and averages them out to one score so that you can get a sense of how good the game without having to go through every review yourself. While it's not perfect, it's the best I've found on the internet, and I think for the most part it does give a good generalization of how a game is.

Recently I was curious about what Metacritic considered the best games ever made, so I did some research and organizing and compiled this list based solely on Metacritic's scores. A few notes:

- Only games on PSOne/N64 console generation and later were included, because that's as far back as Metacritic goes.
- These are all the games that have a 96 rating or higher. While anything 90 or above is considered a great score, I wanted to find the best of the best and not make this list too long.
- There are no games represented from any handheld systems, but this is only because there were no ratings higher than 95 for any handheld games.
- I also didn't include any Dreamcast games. I'm not really sure why I did this, maybe it's because it died so fast and because I dont think I ever actually played one or saw one being played. Maybe that's unfair of me, but if you really want to know go check out Metacritic's Dreamcast Section.
- I will make categories based on the Metacritic ratings (99 through 96), and within each category I will give the name of the game, which system it had the rating for, the year it was released, and any personal thoughts about the game.
- If the game came out for more than one system and the ratings were the same for each system, both will be included next to its title. If the game made the list for one system but not for another (i.e. if a game rated lower on one system than another), that system will not be included in the listing.
- Games in the same score category will be listed from newest to oldest by release date.

So, here's the list! Take a look through and see what you have/haven't played, and what you agree/disagree with.



The 99's

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - N64, 1998
I've only played a little of this game, but I've heard from lots of people that it's their favorite game ever. If you put stock in Metacritic's scores though, you have to crown this game king, seeing as it stands alone atop the charts as the only 99 out of every game rated.


The 98's

Grand Theft Auto IV - 360/PS3, 2008
I have this game and have played some of it. I bought it because of all the hype around it and the great ratings, but personally, I'm not a big fan. The game got boring pretty quick for me, it was too repetitive and slow, and the combat wasn't very good either. Open world sandbox games usually aren't my thing. That being said, I can understand why so many people love it and how it really raised the bar for its genre. It's not often a game does that.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - PSOne, 2000
I may or may not have played this game. There are so many of them it's hard for me to remember which is which. I'm not a big fan of skating games, but I understand why people like them. This must have been an amazing game when it came out.


The 97's

Super Mario Galaxy - Wii, 2007
I've actually been playing this a lot lately (in preparation for Galaxy 2), and I have to say that it's probably my favorite 3D platforming game of all time. The gameplay and levels are great, and I really love the soundtrack too. I'm glad to finally see a game I like on this list.

Metroid Prime - GameCube, 2002
Have only played a little of this one, but it seemed cool, and I can only imagine it was really cool for its time.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Xbox, 2001
I think I've pretty well documented on here how much I love this game. Glad to see it on the list.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 - PS2, 2001
Man, people must have really loved these games. Was 3 that much different than 2? It only came out a year later, but I guess the difference in going from PSOne to PS2 was probably large. How did I miss this skating game craze as a kid?

Grand Theft Auto III - PS2, 2001
I've heard this is a great game, and that it was as amazing in its time as GTA IV was a couple of years ago.

Perfect Dark - N64, 2000
Played this a lot as a kid, and have actually been playing the remake that just came out for Xbox. It's still a lot of fun to play.


The 96's

Mass Effect 2 - 360, 2010
A fairly recent game (came out in the end of January this year) that is one of my favorite games of all time. The only game to come out this year (so far) to have a 96 or better rating.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - PS3, 2009
The only game to come out in 2009 to have a 96+ rating. Also a very good game and a PS3 exclusive.

The Orange Box - 360/PC, 2007
One of the best values in gaming history. Includes Half-Life 2, its expansions, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. I'm sure I've talked about it on here before. A PS3 version of this was released, but didn't score as well as 360 and PC.

Bioshock - 360/PC, 2007
Another great game I love. Came out right around the same time as The Orange Box, and also had a PS3 version which didn't score as well.

Out of the Park Baseball 2007 - PC, 2007
Never heard of this game before now. I think it was a baseball sim; must have been pretty good.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - GameCube, 2006
Have only played a little of this on the Wii. This might be blasphemous to say, but I've never really been able to get into any Zelda games, new or old. Interestingly, you'll notice "Wii" is not included along with GameCube for this game - the Wii version scored slightly lower at a 95, and thus barely missed this list. Interesting.

Resident Evil 4 - GameCube/PS2, 2005
A great survival-horror/action game, probably the best of the series. I've really enjoyed what I've played of this game. This was also later released for Wii, but that version, while highly rated, barely fell short of this list.

Half-Life 2 - PC, 2004
My favorite shooter of all-time. Pretty sure I've lauded it on here enough though.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - GameCube, 2003
A Zelda game I've never played. Probably wouldn't have liked it anyway.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - PS2, 2001
Never played it. I've heard that the Metal Gear Solid series is good if you can get into it (and you like stealth games).

Half-Life - PC, 1998
Have played a little of it, and though it is very outdated (it's almost 12 years old now), I can still tell it was a very well made game.

Gran Turismo - PSOne, 1998
Never played this series before. Not really a fan of realistic racing games. Gran Turismo 5 is supposed to come out later this year for PS3 though.

Tekken 3 - PSOne, 1998
Also not really a fan of fighting games, especially ones that are really hard and complicated like Tekken.

GoldenEye 007 - N64, 1997
The first really popular shooter on a console, this game still has a huge following today. I remember playing it as a kid and thinking it was amazing. I've always been a Bond fan, too.


So there's the list. If I had to pick a winner of video games based off of this it would have to be Zelda (or Link... whatever), although Tony Hawk and GTA would be up there too. Feel free to let me know what you think of this and what your personal experiences with these games were. I always look forward to any comments/input!

What I'm Playing (4/18/10)

Super Mario Galaxy, Cave Story (WiiWare), Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and God of War III (I beat it two weeks ago, but I figured I'd put it on the list). Looking forward to Monster Hunter Tri, which will be released on Tuesday.