Generally speaking, the only television shows I watch with any great frequency are animated. Sure, I'm into Heroes and Chuck, but beyond that, I'm all about The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, Futurama, Aqua Teen, and, of course, South Park.

And when there are new episodes of South Park, I'm watching no matter what. And when they tie into video games, all the better. So it was with no small amount of excitement that I was looking forward to last night's episode, which my Comcast menu informed me was entitled, "Guitar Queer-o" and was all about Guitar Hero.

 If you saw it last night, you no doubt had more than one hearty laugh. So many great moments: the "sex and coke party" scene, the "acoustic" restaurant jam by Thad, and the attempt by Mr. Marsh to connect with the kids stand out as particularly memorable. But for me, the highlight of the episode (and maybe this season of South Park) was Heroin Hero, "the ultimate first-person shooter!" Just the sight of that little dragon, taunting the player in Mr. Hanky's voice, "You almost got me!" was priceless.  

I was fairly impressed with how true they stayed to the game in this episode. I mean, sure, scoring 100,000 points on co-op isn't exactly the most difficult thing to do, but I thought it was pretty cool that they at least used the actual songs from the game. And I'm also pretty sure if you look close enough, they actually animated the characters' fingers to play the songs.

The other thing that struck me about last night's episode was the number and length of commercials for Assassin's Creed. At each commercial break, there was a minute or longer spot for the upcoming Ubisoft title. I just thought it was worth mentioning that a show that spent most of its actual airtime hyping an Activision game would turn out to be sponsored by Ubisoft. Although the very end of the show (no spoilers from me!) helps explain why Ubisoft would be willing to go along.

I will say that I found one of the Assassin's Creed spots a bit curious. I believe it was the second commercial break... It was the commercial which we first posted here about a month ago. Here it is again: 

Note that near the end of the commercial, you'll note that the knight who slumps over has the hilt of a dagger sticking out of his back. Well, if you watched the commercial last night, you would have seen the knight fall over with nothing in his back. I mean, I get it, you can't have an overly violent commercial playing across the country. But when you're advertising on a show that has, in the past, featured disembowelment, ultra-violent war scense, and cannibalism, one might think that the original commercial would have been okay. One would have been wrong.