Friday, July 8, 2016

Goat Simulator Review (XONE)

Born out of a broken and glitchy mess created as a joke at a Game Jam event, Goat Simulator was just too funny of an idea to not turn into an actual game.  It is still broken and glitchy and awful in most ways that normally turn folks away, but it is just too silly and funny and interesting to dismiss so easily.  Who knew being a devil may care goat could be this fun!  See our full Goat Simulator review, plus details on the zombie and mmo expansions.

Game Details

  • Publisher: Double Eleven
  • Developer: Coffee Stain / Double Eleven
  • ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
  • Genre: Action
  • Pros: Very funny; fun to goof around; interesting achievements; multiplayer
  • Cons: Can get old pretty fast
  • MSRP: $10


Goat Simulator is a 3D sandbox game where you play as a goat and can do pretty much whatever you want.  The goat can run around, jump, head butt stuff, and lick things with its sticky tongue to drag them around.  The two different maps in the game are filled with people, cars, explosives, and much, much more and everything has full physics.  You can drag people around, attach your tongue to cars to get flung around the levels, climb buildings, bounce on trampolines, blow up gas tanks, and a ton of other ridiculously silly stuff.  It is glitchy and wonky and doesn’t exactly control very well, but the sheer stupidity and ridiculousness of everything you’re doing makes up for it.  Goat Simulator is funny.



The achievements are also interesting in that they ask you to do specific things within the world like getting abducted by a UFO, partying with deadmau5 (yes, that guy), or even sacrificing humans to the goat devil, among many other tasks.  Doing these tasks not only give you achievements, but they give you new silly powers for your goat as well.  You can select the different powers and other cheats on the main menu when you start the game, which adds a fair bit of variety to things.

And it is a good thing there’s a bit of extra variety because, while it is funny and entertaining, it gets old pretty quickly.  Goat Simulator isn’t something that you’re going to want to play for hours and hours and hours on end.  It is something you’ll re-visit once in a while.  The game does get a bit more silly and funny if you play local co-op with another player as that makes things just that much crazier, but it still isn’t enough to add a ton of longevity.  It is still totally worth trying out, because it is fun, just don’t expect to play it a ton.

If you want even more Goat Simulator nonsense, you can also download two additional modes.  You can buy them as a stand-alone bundle that costs $10, or as DLC for $5 each that requires the original Goat Simulator.  The Goat MMO Simulator turns the game into an MMORPG-style game where your goat can cause chaos in a medieval setting and the GoatZ add-on puts your goat in the middle of a zombie outbreak.  Both of these new modes have their own maps and new goofy stuff to do, but neither one is quite as fun or funny as the original Goat Simulator.  They do give some legs to the formula, though, so they’re worth checking out if you’re enjoying your time as a goat.

All in all, Goat Simulator isn’t a terrible way to spend $10 if you’re interested in the concept.  Being a goat and causing chaos is a lot of fun, but it is somewhat short-lived fun as it gets old fairly quickly.  As something you bust out at parties or just goof off in multiplayer with, it is still well worth buying, though.  Just keep in mind that it is ugly looking and sounds bad and has bad physics on purpose, so check your brain at the door and have fun.

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