Looking at: Goat Simulator

Broken Masterpiece

Despite how it's built, it is possible to break the game.

Goat Sim is something of a hard game to discuss, much less review. When a game advertises itself as being a broken, barely playable game, but then does that to the perfect degree is it still a broken game? Can something that's meant to be terrible still be good if it's good at being terrible.

It's odd that I'm putting this much though into a game about being a goat.

In a way though, that's what Goat Sim is, a game with ideas that are more far-reaching then it's own initial impression. It's a really, really, really stupid game with some really smart ideas and commentaries to provide about modern games. It's a parody that's smarter then it looks, even if it doesn't realize it.

G.O.A.T Goat

There's also an MMO parody included, for some reason.

So what is Goat Sim about? Obviously it's about being a goat and doing goat things. Provided, of course, that your idea of "goat things" include wanton destruction of property, a complete disregard for physics, wholesale slaughter of small European towns, and the occasional demonic sacrifice and satanic ascension. That's just a small slice of the weirdness that awaits in Goat Sim, never mind the World of Warcraft inspired fantasy DLC that adds quests and an inventory system. It's a parody through and through, although a parody of what exactly I'm not really sure.

Gameplay-wise Goat Sim is bizarrely similar to the Tony Hawk games of old, but with a bigger focus of senseless destruction and less on sweet 720 kickflips. You control the goat of your choice as you wander around the open levels, looking for secrets, collecting trophies and combo-ing together your swathe of destruction to complete objectives. It's fun enough singleplayer, but the game really thrives with a few friends and your madness is spread in a wider arch with more people.

Backassward

Flying through the air will constitute most of the game.

Where some games pride themselves on their advanced physics, Goat Sim seems to laud how horrible and broken the physics are. Goat Sim is built on the Unreal engine, and apparently was slapped together out of pre-made assets and whatever was lying around. While the Unreal engine itself is decent, it does have some odd tendencies when it comes to how it renders physics, and it's here that Goat Sim finds itself a niche.

Goat Sim is a broken game that's been sealed up and resold as a broken game. The Steam page advertises that it's full of bugs, and true enough things in Goat Sim often seem completely removed from any basis in reality. It's important to remember, however, that Goat Sim isn't an unplayable game, and is actually quite stable. All of the bugs are internal and sort of personify that old joke of "it's not a bug, it's a feature"

Baaaahd

Crowds of horrified people constitute the rest of the game.

Like I said, it's incredibly difficult to actually critique Goat Sim because it invites you to hate it. It's a game that covers itself in crappy makeup then asks you to call it a psychopath. In an age where the validity of game reviews is constantly being called into question, Goat Sim rises above because it doesn't care what the reviews have to say about it.

Goat Sim isn't that great of a game, and yet at the same time it's a fantastic game. It's a joke that's gone to far, and yet hidden within are even more jokes that make you laugh more. It's deliciously deranged in all the right places and invites you to do likewise. Goat Sim is the anti-game, the anti-review, and the be-all end-all of simulation parody games.