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Ever wondered what it would be like to explore your favorite 2-D world in 3-D? The folks at Tool certainly have. On the occasion of this year's annual Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, the North American production team—best known for design-centric commercial spots like that Mini Cooper commercial with the horde of little girls chasing people through the woods at night—has recreated and built out the sleepy Colorado town from South Park for Oculus Rift.
"The core piece that we wanted to create would make use of the Oculus Rift in all of its glory," they write on the project's website. "We needed a free world experience with a bit of an edge and a beautiful simplicity. So naturally we landed on the world of South Park, which was a perfect blend of everything." The whole project—inspired by previous renditions of the town including the one in the full-fledged 2012 RPG South Park: The Stick of Truth—took them "just a few short weeks in June."
Considering the show from which said town originates consists solely of many scraps of construction paper moved around a flat surface, it's no surprise that the virtual reality version looks like an early build of any other videogame this side of Snowboard Kids 64. But hey, it's got to be fun to pretend you're a cartoon character, and the functionality that allows you to fall into Hell and get saved by Saddam Hussein is pretty great. Check out a tour above, and read up on the laborious process of adding depth to *South Park'*s world over at Tool's website.
