When I first saw Goat Simulator I thought it was a joke. It's not that I didn't think somebody will make it and sell it, I just thought that it was only a funny Garry's mod that you can download for free. Well...it is kind of a funny Garry’s mod, but worse and you have to pay for it.
Goat Simulator is a physics based sandbox game in which you control a goat in third person view.
The idea is that you go around and mess with the environment in this “open world” area and you go around finding secrets and easter eggs. The game is intentionally filled with glitches and bugs, so when you ram or drag objects it results in funny situations. The developers only removed the game breaking bugs. And this is where I question myself: Is it OK to release a broken game if it's intentionally broken? Yes, if the game has other redeeming values. But is Goat Simulator worth the asking price? So let’s see if this game has any redeeming values and if it's worth the time and money.
As you play around as a goat you run around this small town and you have an option to ram things, lick and drag things around with your tongue, and you can turn yourself into a ragdoll which means, that the goats limbs are out of control, and all of this can result in funny situations. You can ram a guy, lick him, to drag him around and then blow up a car, then you fly across the map, and the guy is attached to you. This is literally all you do...but with some variation. While screwing around with the environment you will come across many different structures and if you explore, you can unlock different goats. On a construction site you can find a rocket that you can attach on your goat. You can also find a tennis ball shooter and if you touch it you can that have it on your back and shoot tennis balls into people. The problem is that this sounds much more exciting than it actually is. Nothing works as you want it to. You can’t fly with the jet pack, you just spin in the air, and the tennis balls, they don’t even do anything. Of course you can find quite a few of those and while some are more interesting than other, they all get dull after 5 minutes.
Previously I said “open world” in quotations and that is because it's not really an open world, it's more of a theme park. It's very small and scattered with different buildings and attractions, like trampolines, water slide, a large crane and such things. It has some easter eggs that you can find and while that is my favorite thing to do in the game, there were not a lot of them. There is only that much you can do in this game before you get bored. You can find everything in about 3 hours at best.
The big thing about this game is the physics. Sometimes things just fly across the map, for no reason, human limbs stretch to absurd lengths and the goat head is designed so that neck snaps and the head just flaps everywhere and so on. This is funny when you see it for the first few minutes, but it gets old really fast. I would also argue that the physics are bad, and not bad in a sense that they are ridiculous, but bad in a way that they are not interesting and not funny after few minutes. I get that this is supposed to be funny, but it's not...it's broken.
The graphics are nothing ground breaking, but I know that’s not so much important. The same can be said about sound. There is one music playing in loop while you play, and it might get annoying after some time. I personally didn’t care about it.
This is where I get to tell you if this game is worth your time and money. The world is a small theme park, with only so much to do in it, physics are stupid and broken and the goat powers are uninteresting. Yes I got a few loughs out of it, but that's all. The game has nothing good going on for it. That is why I don't think this game is worth playing. And it's not that it's so bad that you should avoid it, but it's not worth more than 5€ at best.
This game will be considered as success, because it's a game that every YouTube personality (like PewDiePie) will play. They will make funny videos and then people will laugh, but what makes it funny is the commentary. Goat Simulator is a game that is more fun to watch that to play. A game like this would not succeed if it was released a few years back, because internet was not so popular. I think that many more developers will make more games like this, because they can be big money makers, because of the day and age we live in. The games that were similar to this were Minecraft and Surgeon Simulator, but those games are actual games and are more fun to play. It scares me that more games will arrive and do this and on the other side you got hundreds of other indie games that are waaay better and are getting overshadowed. It is not fair that games like this are so popular because of how bad they are.
Conclusion
If you are okay with paying for this, than you will probably get a fun half an hour. The game is broken and that is not excusable. I would rather buy Grand Theft Auto 5, or 4 for PC and put mods on it and I would have waaay much more fun with it. Plus it's a game that I can actually play and enjoy. Although I will give credit to them for being light-heated. You don’t always need very serious, mature and ultra-violent games, sometimes all you need is a goat, but at least make good games. You should not support their business and if you do...maybe you can feel like a goat.