Trying to review Goat Simulator has brought up an interesting question: If a game developer intentionally leaves glitches in a game, do you treat those glitches as you would in a traditional game? On one hand, it is a sort of expression to leave something in an unpolished state on purpose. Since its inception Goat Simulator has been a joke in a very real and very meta sense. It is joke about the community surrounding steam, about the strange simulator games that have come out in recent years, and about videogames themselves and it is hard to see the glitches as separate from that. On the other hand, a game that is full of glitches is still a game that is full of glitches, and whether the creators believe it or not, it does have the potential to detract from the enjoyment of the game they have created. The thing is, Goat Simulator is a lot of fun, at least for a few hours.
While most people I’ve talked to about Goat Simulator assume its some kind of goat farmer/raising game where you control a farmer, in Goat Simulator you actually control the goat. You are dropped in an open (though small) area, and left to do whatever you want. Unlike most open world games, Goat Simulator will reward you for pretty much everything you do. Do you want to jump a fence? That’s a reward. Headbutt a car? That’s a reward. Lick a stone? That’s a reward. Sacrifice five people to Satan? You best believe that’s a reward! The game even rewards you for standing still. Goat Simulator is at its very core an open world game with a physics engine, and so what you will probably be doing most of the time, is causing mayhem. From the moment the game drops you at the starting point, you can run in any direction and find something to damage or harm. You have access to the usual goat arsenal: you can run, jump, head butt, kick, do back flips, ragdoll, and lick things which allows you to drag them. Just like real goats! Conspicuously missing is the ability to eat things. I would think the goat’s legendary eating prowess would be front and center on a game about goats.
Wondering around and completing certain activities will allow you to upgrade your goat. Some are obvious, others less so, but none of them are too hard to figure out after playing around them for while. For those short of creativity, the game provides “objectives” to accomplish. The word objective is not entirely accurate. They are closer to challenges found in PSX and PS2 era skating games. They include things such as doing a specific number of flips, knocking things really far, achieving a specific airtime, etc.. All of these actions contribute to your score and to achieving 100% completion. The game also features achievements to keep you busy once you are finished doing the quests, and achieving a “Big Ass Score (Hard)”. It’s also worth commenting on the music, which is simple, fun, and I found myself humming it a few times. It is definitely fitting for the game.
I mentioned the glitches during the introduction, and there are a lot of those in the game. Most of them, are amusing and unexpected when they happen. However there are some that really do harm the flow of the game. Many times I became stuck in architecture, having to re-spawn and losing all my upgrades. This is annoying, but passable. Worse yet, I managed to make the game crash about four times during the entirety of my playtime. The developers clearly did not take the care they claim when making sure the game has no game breaking bugs. These times the game required me to close the game from the Task Manager, and restart completely from the beginning.
Glitches aside, the only real drawback that Goat Simulator has that prevents me from recommending it, is that there just isn’t much to the game. It is fun, and will keep you entertained for a few hours. But after you’ve discovered most of its secrets, completed the challenges and inflicted damage and misery on the game world and its long suffering inhabitants, there just isn’t much left to do. The game area is fun and open, but painfully small. The upgrades are easy to find, which is great for having fun, but this obviously affects the longevity of the game. It is true that early on it can be a lot of fun, but I can’t see anyone going back to it after a few sessions. The game does feature Steam Workshop support, and in the future this might mean that more content will be made available to users that will lengthen its game time. As it is now though, it is hard to justify the $9.99 price tag . Let’s face it, this is a Steam Indie game, in a few weeks it will likely be available for a steep discount. I would recommend waiting until then to pick it up.
