Joystiq review: South Park makes love, not Warcraft [update 2]

To kick off the fall season of South Park, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided to take on gaming phenomenon World of Warcraft. The episode kicks off in Goldshire. Cartman, "a mighty dwarf," takes back from a bathroom break before they all take on a quest. The boys collide with a half-naked avatar who dances and then kills the boys ... without agreeing to a duel! Ooh, he breaks the rules. Blizzard is helpless to stop them -- he can actually kill admins. So all the children -- even Butters, who had to switch from Hello Kitty Island Adventures -- all band together to stop the foe. Failing that, the boys power-level for over 17 days in the small hope that they can overcome the foe with "absolutely no life."

A majority of the episode takes place in World of Warcraft, and the in-game choreography is superb. The episode is more of an homage to WOW than a satire, though it has its moments of absurdities (especially when involving the Blizzard staff). It's the hardcore World of Warcraft players that get the butt of most jokes. Portrayed as overweight, Rockstar-drinking, pimple-faced nerds with carpal tunnel syndrome, these "pros" are shown as possibly having even less than no life.

It's the craziness you would expect from Parker and Stone, with due respect given to the source material. Relation to video games aside, it's a great social satire that ranks with some of the better episodes.

"Scroll over him with your mouse cursor and ... right click!"

[Update 1: Here's another take on the episode from sister site TV Squad. 2: Grab the entire episode over at You NEWB.]