{"id":82442,"date":"2019-02-14T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/goat_simulator_the_goaty"},"modified":"2019-02-14T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T15:00:00","slug":"review-goat-simulator-the-goaty-a-mildly-amusing-waste-of-time-but-not-much-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/14\/review-goat-simulator-the-goaty-a-mildly-amusing-waste-of-time-but-not-much-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Goat Simulator: The GOATY &#8211; A Mildly Amusing Waste Of Time, But Not Much Else"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/goat_simulator_the_goaty\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/goat_simulator_the_goaty\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94996\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94996\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/goat_simulator_the_goaty\"><strong>Goat Simulator: The GOATY<\/strong><\/a> is the kind of game you&#8217;ll either get or you won&#8217;t. It&#8217;s either a hilarious way to kill time and affect some form of skill amid the chaos, or it&#8217;s just a jumped up joke that&#8217;s outlived the laughter. Wherever your thoughts might ultimately land, there&#8217;s no denying that Coffee Stain Studios has produced something quite unlike anything else on Nintendo Switch. And with every expansion released to date included with this new port, you&#8217;re getting the <em>definitive<\/em> edition right there on your hybrid console.<\/p>\n<p>So what exactly <em>is<\/em> Goat Simulator? Well, you control a goat (shock horror) that runs around various locales causing as much wanton destruction as it&#8217;s possible for one four-legged beast to unleash. You can build up speed and headbutt scenery and people by holding &#8216;ZR&#8217;, jump with &#8216;B&#8217;, flip your body by holding &#8216;ZL&#8217; and moving the left analog stick and grab onto things with your tongue via &#8216;Y&#8217;. Yes, it sounds stupid, and it <em>is<\/em> stupid, but that&#8217;s kind of the point.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94994\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94994\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>While it&#8217;s received substantial updates in the form of multiple themed expansions \u2013 all of which are included here on Switch \u2013 the game still retains the buggy, physics-driven crudeness that&#8217;s made it so famous\/infamous. In some ways, Goat Simulator is like a rougher version of the <strong>Skate<\/strong> games. While you&#8217;re not trying to pull off sick tricks on two wheels, the angle and position of your goaty avatar determine just how many points you&#8217;ll score. From doing backflips off the roof of a house to headbutting your way through a glass-surrounded office building, it takes quite a while to nail the subtle balance needed to land with all four hooves on the ground and keep your multiplier going.<\/p>\n<p>The main Goat Simulator game revolves around this desire to rack up points and combos in various over-the-top ways, leading to some of the most bizarre activities you&#8217;ll likely ever partake in on Switch. You&#8217;ll smash up a BBQ and set people on fire for maximum points; you&#8217;ll use a trampoline to launch into a building site and send workmen flying like skittles; you&#8217;ll try to ride a bike \u2013 <em>as a goat, obviously<\/em> \u2013 through traffic and cause untold mayhem. There are even rolling objectives to complete that range from the simple (knock down some pedestrians) to the more long-winded (collect 30 golden goat statues).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94995\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94995\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Alongside the main mode, there are four extra expansions that take that same silly template and add a few extra factors for your goat to smash up. There&#8217;s Goat MMO Simulator, GoatZ, Payday and Waste of Space. Sounds like a weird bunch, right? You&#8217;d be absolutely right, and it suits Goat Simulator down to the ground. Those modes simply give you a little more structure; for instance, Waste of Space sees you raising money to repair a space station by, naturally, headbutting and kicking people until they drop their cash in sheer fear. You can even teleport yourself across a room \u2013 because at this stage, <em>why not?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Goat MMO Simulator might be wearing its love of <strong>The Elder Scrolls<\/strong> on its sleeve, but don&#8217;t expect a mode worthy of the Dragonborn. Instead of tracking multiplied points and an overall score counter, this expansion translates it into XP and levels. It&#8217;s basically the same thing, but coupled with mutators that enable you to take on a variety of RPG-style classes, each with their own set of unique skills. You can also play a microwave on legs. Don&#8217;t ask why; you just <em>can<\/em>. Along with Waste of Space, it&#8217;s one of the better additions and actually feels like something approaching a proper game. You can also head out and explore its naff-looking fantasy world and complete quests for NPCs, but while it&#8217;s a more applied use of Goat Simulator&#8217;s mechanics, its paper-thin application doesn&#8217;t hold up for long.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94993\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94993\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Goat Simulator: The GOATY Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The end result is a game with multiple personalities and vastly contrasting levels of quality. Even if you find the original Goat Simulator a bore, there&#8217;s some genuine sense of structure and \u2013 dare we say it \u2013 <em>depth<\/em> to the world of MMO Simulator, while Waste of Space is considerably more enjoyable thanks to its money-collecting objectives. But for its silliness, you&#8217;ll eventually start to tire of its bargain bin design, and even the extra modes can&#8217;t give it the longevity it badly needs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Goat Simulator: The GOATY is a definitive edition of Coffee Stain Studios&#8217; slapstick destruction simulator, and as such, it&#8217;s a mixed bag that varies wildly in quality. The base modes are fun for about five minutes, and there&#8217;s only so much entertainment to be had from launching a farm animal from the top of a roller coaster before it becomes dull. The Waste of Space and MMO Simulator expansions are decent fun in their own right thanks to a greater sense of structure, but the purposefully crude mechanics will start to grate after a while. This is a package that arguably works best as a smartphone proposition for when you&#8217;ve got five minutes to kill; when placed on a proper console with many more worthy uses of your time, it all starts to feel more than a little inconsequential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Goat Simulator: The GOATY is the kind of game you&#8217;ll either get or you won&#8217;t. It&#8217;s either a hilarious way to kill time and affect some form of skill amid the chaos, or it&#8217;s just a jumped up joke that&#8217;s outlived the laughter. Wherever your thoughts might ultimately land, there&#8217;s no denying that Coffee Stain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}