Goat Simulator review

Ready...steady...GOAT (I won't apologise for that one)

In the years gone by, game developers and publishers would look to mainstream magazines to emblazon their shiny new game across their front pages. But times have changed, and now it appears  the only effort needed to market your game to a mass audience involves the process of copy and pasting a Steam code into the body an email, shooting it off to a famous YouTuber a la PewDiePie or Tobuscus, and watching the views (and lolz) roll in. In recent years it seems that more and more developers,especially in the indie scene,have begun to tailor their games specifically for this purpose; games like Amnesia and Slender-- designed to provoke hyperbolic and amplified reactions with their ludicrous jump-scares-- have been followed by games such as Sanctum developer Coffee Stain Studios’ new creation : Goat Simulator.

Those who have watched PewDiePie’s bombardment of ‘Let’s Plays’ will know Goat Simulator well, but for  intelligent human beings who haven’t (only joking PewDiePie fans) Goat Simulator is exactly what it sounds like: a parody of the multitude of mixed quality simulator games that have been popping up on Steam over the past few years. But the game itself is really a small physics sandbox  in which you play as (you guessed it) a goat. If you’ve ever wanted to jump, headbutt and lick your way to the top -- now is your chance.

It’s these three mechanics which the gameplay centres around. The aim of the game is  to complete around 25 ‘goals’ which include things simple things like letting out the signature “baaa” sound, to more complex tasks which involve racking up a combo across obstacles such as the trampolines which are dotted all around the game. But obviously in a game of this type the fun is to be had from straying away from these optional  goals to blaze your own path. Fun activities include, but are not limited to: headbutting almost everything in sight; attaching your tongue to a human and pulling him/her across the map to create yet more destruction; pretending your a Goat-Olympic trampolinist; getting abducted by aliens; playing Flappy Goat (yes,really); attempting to traverse a crane and jump off onto a glider below (very hard); and blowing up the gas station to be met by an achievement entitled ‘Michael Bay’ (naturally). When you’re bored of these things there’s always the subtle easter eggs in the game such as the pentagram circle in the ground which--when used to sacrifice 5 people will unlock a new ‘Blood Goat’. The game also has Steam Workshop support which will surely provide some interesting gameplay additions from a talented community of modders. Overall, the main gameplay mechanics are reasonably enjoyable although we all know you don’t buy a game called Goat Simulator for the investing gameplay.

The reason of course, is the comedy. The game’s opening gambit is to parody simulator games but that joke gets old quickly. Instead the developers have--rightly or wrongly--chosen to include all but the game-breaking bugs, ostensibly to provide funny glitches and satire the big-budget launch-gaffes from the likes of Skyrim and most EA games (I’m looking at you Battlefield 4) . But to the uninitiated, some of the bugs just look like poor-programming and lazy workmanship. The game rose to prominence in its early access beta period but doesn’t look to have left it and unfortunately (at the time of writing) is yet to dispel its horrible optimisation issues. This means that more casual PC gamers with underpowered setups, will struggle to run this game at a steady frame rate at anything but the least intensive settings. Coffee Stain must surely fix this in order to tap into the more casual audience that the gameplay is suited for. Until that time comes, this problem represents the game’s biggest downside.

Verdict: Overall, it is clear that this game is clearly designed with eccentric YouTubers in mind. But, for the rest of us, this game will provide at the very least some cheap laughs and whimsical gameplay, although the debilitating bugs really limit the game’s functionality. And while Goat Simulator is firmly embedded in the cultural zeitgeist, it won’t be soon before the YouTube digerati get bored and swiftly move on -- an action which will surely be quickened up by the irritating bugs.

2/5