We have enough Goatz now.
Goat Simulator is a series (did I just say that?!) that worked on novelty. It was a physics-based time-waster that led to hilarious situations. It was buggy, sometimes broken, and all around ridiculous. It was fun while it lasted, but I never expected anyone to expand on the idea. Well, they did. Goat Simulator: Mmore Goatz Edition combines the two expansions that were released on the PC rolled into one neat package on the Xbox One. There is an MMO-themed section, and of course a zombie survival one.
For the uninitiated, Goat Simulator is basically a playground to do idiotic things. There are glitches, in fact the game is designed to be broken. The idea is a pure physics playground for players to achieve dumb things. With the expansions the developers tried to toss in some actual game play elements and goals to achieve.
MSRP: $9.99
Platforms: XB1
Price I’d Pay: $4.99
The MMO section adds classes of goats to play as. All the standards apply: mage, tank, hunter, and of course, microwave. Each class has different abilities, and don’t worry about sticking to one. Players can switch whenever they want because, well the leveling system simply doesn’t matter. Gaining XP just fills a meter, and completing quests is arbitrary. The microwave is actually quite useless as it only heats food.
All the standard MMO tropes are here. Kill x amount of enemies, collect x amount of things, and of course escort slow-moving NPCs, although they really take it to the next level with their movement, so much so that I never completed one of these quests. I get it, the joke has been told, but none of it makes for fun game play.
Then there is the zombie survival part. I mean, it was inevitable considering how hot the undead are in gaming that Goat Simulator try its hand at the genre. Well, in Goatz standard survival rules apply. Players have to keep their hunger down, build barricades, or simply turn on the modifiers and just head butt everything. Yeah, trying to do tasks with the controls and finicky physics in Goat Simulator is frustrating, which is why I am shocked they even tried. It is best to turn on some mutators and just roam the world.
This becomes this expansion’s biggest problem. Doing the actual missions and such is a chore. Goat Simulator was designed to be a big dumb playground without objectives. When they try to shoehorn players into a funnel of missions, it falls apart. I would have just loved the new themed worlds added to the original game instead of trying to actually add game-type things to do. It just doesn’t work.
Still, for anyone who missed the original this second edition has two different areas that are fun to explore, even if the tasks are menial. I just think Goat Simulator might have peaked. I had a lot of fun in the world, but the novelty is wearing thin, and adding tasks that are more frustrating to complete doesn’t enhance the experience. Goat Simulator is still a big dumb thing, and I love it for that, but I think it is time to hang it up.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
