Chef’s Luv Shack is an utterly repugnant game that has literally no redeeming features whatsoever. It isn’t funny, it looks like arse and plays about as smoothly as a cup of razor blades. Normally, I don’t tend to get properly stuck into games in these features, as there’s usually at least something positive that I can draw from even the most putrid of games, but sadly when it comes to this flatulent fuckstrocity, I’m afraid I have nothing positive to say other than I’m thoroughly delighted that I’m no longer playing it.
I’m aware that this game also saw releases to the PlayStation and Dreamcast, and it might have been ever so slightly less awful on those formats, but it was the N64 version I played, so it’s the N64 version I’m going to be utterly skewering like a rancid souvlaki. If I’m wrong to be making the other two games guilty by association, then feel free to write in the comments below about why they’re better.
The game is little more than a cynical cash-in, in which Acclaim have made a low budget Mario Party clone and stuck the South Park license on it in a viciously devious attempt at milking some money from what was the bulging South Park cash cow of the late 90s.
Nowadays, when they make a South Park game such as The Stick of Truth, they at least have the common decency to try and make an actually decent game first before filling it with South Park related gags and characters. Not in 1999 though, which was probably the last vestiges of the games industry’s wild west days of releasing any old crap in time for Christmas without fear of reprisals.
These days, it’d be all over the internet in seconds what an abhorrently awful bag of suck this game was, but back in the 90s the internet wasn’t quite as readily available, so most of the masses would probably not know how truly wretched this game was until they had the misfortune of sticking it in the N64 console.
The game is based around the titular game show on South Park’s local public access network, whereby four lucky ladies take part in a quiz and a selection of mini-games in order to win a night of passion with chubby love machine Chef. However, in a HILARIOUS mix up, young-8-year old boys Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman have been drafted in to guest instead, thus meaning Chef can’t get his end away at the show’s conclusion.
Please take a moment to laugh yourself hoarse at this AMAZING TWIST. Go on, laugh yourself fuckless, I’ll wait.
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So, oh wait, I can see you’re still laughing, don’t mind me, I’ll go back to waiting.
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There, finished? Good, let’s continue.
So, what follows is a torturous ordeal where you answer uninteresting quiz questions, listen to unfunny quips from the characters and play unfinished mini-games that would look archaic and poorly designed if they were on the ZX Spectrum, let alone on an honest to goodness fifth gen console.
The graphics are absolutely terrible, with everyone’s eyes being way too high up on their faces, thus making them look like freakish creatures from another world, and the actors (the real ones from the show, no less, including Isaac Hayes) deliver their lines sounding as if they couldn’t be more bored if they were putting the peel back on an orange whilst listening to Andy Kaufman read The Great Gatsby.
I can’t say much more about this game, really. It’s absolutely horrid, has not one single solitary redeeming feature and should be avoided like flesh eating bacteria. If you see it for sale in a games shop, take it off the shelf and stomp it to smithereens, you’ll be doing the human race a favour!
Thanks for reading
In the near future, I’ll be starting a new series here in the Retro section, owing to a recent purchase of a certain well known console. I won’t spoil it, but stay tuned for the big reveal, which will probably be in a couple of weeks depending on how quickly it gets delivered.
Until next time;
Come On You Blues!!!
If you want to cleanse your pallet after reading about such crap, why not take a goosey gander at the following content here on the site?
Alec recently reviewed Watch Dogs 2, and he liked it. I mean, REALLY liked it. We’re talking “buy it a steak dinner and let it have it’s way with him” liked it. If you’d like to see the reasons why he liked it so much, you can find out by clicking right HERE
Steve regularly explores every nook and cranny of the indie game scene to find free games worth giving a go, and you can look at his recent discoveries by clicking right HERE. It’s always a good read and well worth a moment of your time!
