At first, I thought Goat Simulator was going to be another of this godawful simulator games for mundane activities of real life (like Trucker Simulator or Bus Driver Simulator). Goat Simulator however is a different beast. It is Meme Game more than anything else and doesn't have much real simulator aspects. You play a Goat in a physics based sandbox and the aim of the game is to wreck mayhem and experience all kinds of little stories within the chaos.
The maingame consists of two areas (Goatville and Goatcity), in which you are completely free to do whatever you want from the get go. There is no overreaching narrative storyline, just a mean spirited Goat doing his thing. There are however many small stories hidden in the game. You can for example sacrifice humans to a demonic Devil Goat, crash a Disco Party, take a Boat Ride or contact aliens.
The Goat can jump on objects, attack humans and destroy stuff with his horns, or attache himself to all kinds of objects via his licking tongue. These options get multiplied by the various Transformations and Bonuses (like double jumping, jet packs etc.) that get unlocked by completing the many side quests. Exploring the sandbox levels (which aren't too gigantic) and creating chaos has to be a big motivator to truly enjoy this game, because you will beat the regular side missions in around 4-5 hours and after that the chaos will be your only motivation to continue. The gameplay is definitely entertaining thanks to the hilariously unrealistic Physics of the Goat and other objects flying throughout the air.
Goatville is more of small town area, while Goatcity has a bit more of a big city vibe. The DLCs apparently allow you to further explore space ('Waste of Space'), become a criminal ('Payday'), survive a Zombie apocalypse ('Goatz') or participate in an online Roleplay game ('MMO Simulator'). I have however not played any of them.
Goat Simulator was also ported to the Playstation 3 and the PS4 version doesn't look like a big improvement. The framerate is also a lot choppier than on the PC, especially if stuff explodes. Furthermore there are lots of Glitches and Bugs in the game, many of them done on purpose for comedic effects. Nonetheless, the technical status of the PS4 version is disappointing and I feel like the buggy state of the game has been taken as justification to simply not need to fix any kind of glitches, which is a bit lazy.
There is one more aspect worth mentioning for potential trophy hunters. Goat Simulator is not a very difficult game, but there is one minigame called 'Flappy Goat' that will drive you into complete madness. This is heavily inspired by the game Flappy Bird, just a million times worse. Flappy Goat is far more difficult due to significantly faster drop off times and comedically large hitboxes of objects. Completing even 10 goals took me hours to accomplish and is still the stuff, that hunts me in my nightmares. Whoever developed Flappy Goat should feel ashamed of themselves.
Pro:
- Very entertaining Meme Game (funny)
- Hilariously absurd Physics and Chaos
- Nice sandbox levels
- Interesting side stories
Contra:
- No real narrative
- Ugly visuals for a PS4 game
- More Glitches than necessary
- FLAPPY GOAT!
Result:
Goat Simulator is one of the funniest games I have played in a while and I had a good time with the mayhem my Goat was able to create and the nice side stories I discovered. The technical status of the PS4 version however is lackluster, the visuals are underwhelming and after a couple of hours I personally lost the motivation to play, since I felt I had experienced everything the game has to offer. Nonetheless, Goat Simulator was despite its many issues a positive surprise for me and I would recommend it to anybody interested in Meme Games or who wants to create pure chaos with a nasty Goat.
6.5/10
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