So I
figured I would start with one of the PS Plus games of the month for my
first Gaming on a Budget column. I mean, what’s cheaper than free! Well, technically
you pay for the service, but whatever.
Anyway, I
always get excited to see which games will be available for download
when the end of the month draws near. Will it be a big time, A-list title?
An obscure hidden gem? Who knows. I have to say
that for the most part, Sony does a good job. Hell, in January we got
the first three Uncharted games! Those were all A-list titles and are
important parts of Sony’s catalog. Personally, I don’t love them, but
they are good, solid, 8.5/10 games and if you
haven’t played them, the price is right. But everyone already knows
about Uncharted, so I am going to focus on the OTHER game this month.
Which
is...Goat Simulator? I remember hearing about it when it was launched, but I thought
it was something out of an Onion article and not an actual game. Yet
here it is, available for the low price of $0 on my PS4
for January 2020. Checking out some reviews, it seems to be pretty
divisive, some love it and others hate it. It also doesn’t appear to be
a simulator at all, despite the title and cover (It has the same font
and style of an old school “flight simulator”
game). So what’s the deal?
The best
way I can describe this mess is a combination of Grand Theft Auto and
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but without skating or car theft. You explore a
city open world style, causing as much or as little
havoc as you want. You are given a list of tasks you can complete for
points, everything from doing backflips to hijacking techno concerts.
It makes little sense, but it isn’t supposed to. Controls and physics
are similar to THPS. Its almost as if they
just took out the skateboard, you can even manual by pressing up and
down. The goat jumps with X and can be rotated with the d-pad. Square
licks, R2 headbuts, L1 bleats and circle activates rag doll physics.
Its all relatively responsive and quite simple.
Here’s
the problem though. There is little, if any, substance here. The game
is fun for about 30 minutes before the whole shock of it wears thin.
The first time a car explodes after you headbutt it,
its laugh out loud funny. The 20th time you do it, its just meh.
There are a lot of objectives, but none of them are particularly
interesting and most of them are just doing the same thing in different
locations. Its not just a one playthrough kind of game,
I would definitely boot it up for multiple quick sessions, but I
couldn’t see playing this for hours on end.
So,
here’s the point in the review where I get out the flame shield, because
I am going to talk about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the game that Goat
Simulator felt most like to me. I find almost all of the THPS games to be highly overrated. Tony Hawk’s Underground is great, but
outside of that, every single game in the franchise is a shallow,
button mash-fest that was a product of the uber-obnoxious skater fad in
the 90s. That said, they were fun in short bursts and Goat simulator
kind of carries that mantle. If anything I like
it better, as there’s much more to do and you aren’t bound to your
perpetually moving board.
And
that’s where the GTA elements come in. You really do have free reign of
the city, there’s no timer, its difficult to die and you can work
through missions as you choose. Do no get me wrong, this
isn’t GTA, but the influence is certainly there. Honestly, I think I
could see this as something I would give to a younger gamer I didn’t
feel was “ready” for the extreme violence and overt sex of GTA. It’s
rated T, there are some “suggestive themes” that
I wouldn’t recommend really young gamers be exposed to, but its nothing
that 10-year old boys don’t joke about on the school bus.
This was
probably the hardest game I have ever had to rate, I struggled a little
bit with what score to give it. On one hand, the gameplay is
monotonous, most of the humor really isn’t my thing and there
were points where I felt my brain cells dying. On the other hand, the
game was really fun in short playing sessions, there is a decent amount
to do and when it was clever, it was really clever. The graphics are
okay and the sound is decent, not much to say
there. I hated the fact that it seemed like a vehicle for DLC, but
there was plenty of content available from the start.
I figured
the easiest thing to do was compare it to THPS, since that was the game
I was reminded the most of. There were certainly elements of GTA mixed
in, but that had more to do with how the game
was structured vs. how it was played. I would say Goat Simulator was
certainly worse than THUG, but better than anything else in the series, so for this...
5.5/10
I will close each Gaming on a Budget by answering two questions:
Was it
worth it at the price point? I would say so. It was free through PS
Plus, but that service is $12 per month for 2 games making the price
technically $2.50. That’s more than fair for a quick
diversion. However, it normally retails for $9.99 and I don’t think I
would pay that for it.
Would I
pay $60 for it: Absolutely not. In no universe would this be worth a
full price purchase. There isn’t nearly enough here.
Play this if:
You are into goat yoga
You are the type of gamer who plays GTA without touching the missions
You are looking for something to play in short increments
Avoid if:
You can’t take the humor
You are looking for a game with more depth.
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