South Park’s Bad Racing Game From 26 Years Ago Deserves Another Chance

South Park has a bit of a wonky history with gaming. While recent games have largely been well-received (outside of the lackluster reception to South Park: Snow Day!), the first video game adaptations of the hit animated series were less impressive. In fact, the first three games based on the show (all published by Activision) were critical misfires that failed to make a real impression on players outside of their brand recognition.

In retrospect (and with the benefit of good South Park games proving that the show can be translated well to gaming), one of the failures stands out above the others. Released January 5, 2000, South Park Rally was a kart racing game that only worked as a reskin of basic kart racing gameplay. It’s a shame, too, because a South Park kart racing game actually has a lot of potential and could easily justify a modern reimagining.

South Park Rally Was One Of The Franchise’s Early Gaming Misfires

South Park‘s early success on Comedy Central translated into three video games — none of which were all that well-received. South Park was a poorly received FPS released for the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, while South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack was an attempt to combine the series with a party game format. South Park Rally was the third and final of the original South Park games published by Activision, and ultimately received some of the worst reviews of the bunch. Released for Dreamcast, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Microsoft Windows, South Park Rally took a fairly formulaic approach to the kart racing gameplay, replicating most of the baseline mechanics from games like Mario Kart 64 and covering it up with a South Park coat of paint.

Although the game does feature some original dialogue voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it felt very much like a South Park game in name only, without much of the creatively crude comedy that defines the franchise. Compare South Park Rally to other later games developed in collaboration with South Park Digital Studios, like South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! or South Park: The Stick of Truth. Those games found ways to combine their gameplay mechanics with the same kind of goofy chaos and satirical edge that always made the show more than just poop and fart jokes.

By contrast, South Park Rally doesn’t benefit from the IP more than giving it a unique visual marker compared to other games in the genre. Even then, the blocky graphics of the fifth generation of consoles didn’t do a great job of feeling like the deliberate cut-out art style of South Park. Earning a dismal Metacritic score that ranged between 43% and 47% positive based on the port being reviewed, critics at the time highlighted how the whole experience felt like a wasted opportunity. Now, over twenty-five years later, that feels more true than ever.

South Park Rally Could Actually Work Really Well Nowadays

Kart racing games are having something of a resurgence as of late. Mario Kart World was a wildly ambitious new entry in the series, expanding to a massive landscape that could be freely explored by racers. Kirby’s Air Riders highlighted a more kinetic approach to kart racing games, with a lightness and colorful aesthetic that delivered one of Nintendo’s best games of 2025. Meanwhile, competitors like Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds took strong shots at upending expectations, proving that Sega can still deliver a racing game just as good as anything Nintendo has to offer. Kart racing games work best with a clear visual style to separate them from other entries in the genre, tight gameplay that gives players variety through a wide roster of characters or karts, and a distinct world that is exciting to race through.

South Park might be the ideal franchise for the genre, realizing the potential that South Park Rally couldn’t muster at the dawn of the century. While that game had a somewhat limited space to pull from, given the relative youth of the series, a modern South Park kart racing game could take players to all the wild settings introduced in the years since, whether that be a Wizard of Oz version of Canada, the wide-open space of Imagination Land, or through Casa Bonita. The wider selection of potential characters, bolstered by decades of refinement on television, could be great groundwork for a vast collection of racers.

South Park Digital Studios has showcased a strong vision for good gameplay, which means they could likely work with a developer to create a very well-designed kart racer. The game could even be a great new way for South Park to poke fun at competitive gaming, with the typical multiplayer focus on racing games potentially serving as a fun place to rip into a different part of the industry than the gags of Stick of Truth or The Fractured But Whole. South Park‘s vast world would be a great place to bring to life in a kart racer, especially if modern graphics could recreate the art style of the show in a more kinetic style. It would be a challenge, but one that could deliver a potential new contender for the kart racing crown that South Park Rally never was.