Reviewed on PC
→ April 1, 2014Goat Simulator is a joke of a game. It’s small, deliberately unpolished and buggy, and its design is simple. So it’s a good thing it’s a really funny joke, full of great physics-powered slapstick humor, and unexpected surprises in every corner of its seemingly peaceful small-town map. There’s not much actual gameplay here beyond breaking things for points, but shooting for a high score is probably the least entertaining thing about Goat Simulator. It’s mostly about exploring the fun house and discovering the hilarious surprises at your own pace.
There’s no story to explain why we’re a goat or what’s filled his heart with such murderous hatred, but the one that developed for me is an absurdist tale of an invincible creature terrorizing a rural community. It’s a sequence of weird and random events, like when I snagged a hapless bystander with my impossibly stretchy goat tongue, climbed a huge crane with my horrible ladder-climbing animation, then leaped from the top with my dangling captive in tow. I tapped Q to enable the rag-doll physics and F to activate slow motion so I could enjoy the goofy flailing of my goat and his unwilling passenger to its fullest. There’s always something delightful about watching the goat collapse in a heap on impact, then magically shaking it off as though nothing happened. Or, even better, watching him immediately get hit by a car.
Mission goals are presented as optional achievements, which range from goofy little things like pushing the 1 key several times to hear all the different goat noises to seeing how long you can remain airborne, or high-score challenges that give an extra reason to run around like a goat in a china shop (as if we needed one). Plenty of collectibles are stashed around the map, and grabbing that stuff unlocks a few great alternate models. Still more interesting are the unannounced goals, like tipping a “Giant Death Boulder” positioned on a hill above a barbeque party, stumbling into the secret goat kingdom and gaining magical powers, or finding the awesome and completely uncontrollable jetpack.
Exaggerated physics are used to great effect in most of these – it’s hilarious to kick over a dining room table and send everything flying (including the dinner guests), then have a random plate or piece of fruit fly out the window with enough force to cause a nearby car to explode. I love how much of the world is destructible, but it’s also a little disappointing that big stuff like buildings can’t be knocked down and certain scripted cars aren’t affected by your interactions. Surprisingly nice lighting and shadows aside, everything looks very plain and undetailed, as though the art was designed for a different game altogether (which is entirely possible). That just makes the goat’s outlandish behavior feel even funnier – like he’s wrecking someone else’s game.
As advertised, Goat Simulator is buggy as all hell. Expect to see lots of clipping problems as people get stuck in walls, and to have to use the respawn menu command every so often when you get stuck in objects or fall through the world. Developer Coffee Stain has vowed never to fix these (except for crash bugs, which I haven’t seen any of) because they think they’re funny, and for the most part they’re absolutely right about that. The fact that you can never die or fail in any way means that there’s nothing to lose from those bugs, and everything to gain when something tremendously unlikely results from them. It'll only get more insane over time, as the Steam Workshop support allows us to easily add the mods that are already trickling out of the community. (I like the wiggling goat legs.)
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→ April 1, 2014Goat Simulator is a joke of a game. It’s small, deliberately unpolished and buggy, and its design is simple. So it’s a good thing it’s a really funny joke, full of great physics-powered slapstick humor, and unexpected surprises in every corner of its seemingly peaceful small-town map. There’s not much actual gameplay here beyond breaking things for points, but shooting for a high score is probably the least entertaining thing about Goat Simulator. It’s mostly about exploring the fun house and discovering the hilarious surprises at your own pace.
There’s no story to explain why we’re a goat or what’s filled his heart with such murderous hatred, but the one that developed for me is an absurdist tale of an invincible creature terrorizing a rural community. It’s a sequence of weird and random events, like when I snagged a hapless bystander with my impossibly stretchy goat tongue, climbed a huge crane with my horrible ladder-climbing animation, then leaped from the top with my dangling captive in tow. I tapped Q to enable the rag-doll physics and F to activate slow motion so I could enjoy the goofy flailing of my goat and his unwilling passenger to its fullest. There’s always something delightful about watching the goat collapse in a heap on impact, then magically shaking it off as though nothing happened. Or, even better, watching him immediately get hit by a car.
Mission goals are presented as optional achievements, which range from goofy little things like pushing the 1 key several times to hear all the different goat noises to seeing how long you can remain airborne, or high-score challenges that give an extra reason to run around like a goat in a china shop (as if we needed one). Plenty of collectibles are stashed around the map, and grabbing that stuff unlocks a few great alternate models. Still more interesting are the unannounced goals, like tipping a “Giant Death Boulder” positioned on a hill above a barbeque party, stumbling into the secret goat kingdom and gaining magical powers, or finding the awesome and completely uncontrollable jetpack.
Exaggerated physics are used to great effect in most of these – it’s hilarious to kick over a dining room table and send everything flying (including the dinner guests), then have a random plate or piece of fruit fly out the window with enough force to cause a nearby car to explode. I love how much of the world is destructible, but it’s also a little disappointing that big stuff like buildings can’t be knocked down and certain scripted cars aren’t affected by your interactions. Surprisingly nice lighting and shadows aside, everything looks very plain and undetailed, as though the art was designed for a different game altogether (which is entirely possible). That just makes the goat’s outlandish behavior feel even funnier – like he’s wrecking someone else’s game.
As advertised, Goat Simulator is buggy as all hell. Expect to see lots of clipping problems as people get stuck in walls, and to have to use the respawn menu command every so often when you get stuck in objects or fall through the world. Developer Coffee Stain has vowed never to fix these (except for crash bugs, which I haven’t seen any of) because they think they’re funny, and for the most part they’re absolutely right about that. The fact that you can never die or fail in any way means that there’s nothing to lose from those bugs, and everything to gain when something tremendously unlikely results from them. It'll only get more insane over time, as the Steam Workshop support allows us to easily add the mods that are already trickling out of the community. (I like the wiggling goat legs.)
More...
