Gamer reviews for Goat Simulator
Goat Simulator is Not What You'd Expect
First, there was a touch screen. Second, the masses demanded the ability to use this magical technology to grow vegetables they hated for pretend. Third, there was Goat Simulator.
A traditional simulation game takes players into worlds different from their own and allows them to explore, create, and imagine. In this particular simulation, however, your task is destruction and mayhem. As a goat. And not just any goat. A goat that is indestructible.
The game, from Coffee Stain Studios, is out for mobile on The App Store and Google Play and costs $4.99. On Steam and the Humble Store, computer gamers can expect to pay around $10. The game is rated ages 9+, presumably because of situational devil worship, irresponsible trampoline use and winning points for making people cry. There is no blood or guts. The people that you abuse, immolate, and sacrifice show no outward sign of injury. They faint, yell and magically levitate, but all bodily harm is left for the player to imagine in their own twisted mind.
Game play takes a little getting used to. The controls are the standard mobile format of "use the left-hand circle to attempt to control your direction and the right side of the screen to do everything else." This often results in ridiculously uncontrollable movements and chaos. There are achievements and quests to complete to prove your extreme goat-godliness. The quests are also the only structured aspect of the game play and while they are necessary to unlock all of the awesome, disgusting and super cool goat forms, they are not vital to the game's central focus of running amok.
The graphics are... glitchy. We say that about a lot of games, however, some of the game's biggest fans love it because of the glitches and not in spite of them. In this true open-world format, you are free to go (just about) wherever and do (just about) whatever and occasionally your explorations will lead you strange places that defy even these loosely-based-in-reality game physics.
Before making the decision to make Goat Simulator part of your life, you must ask yourself if you are the kind of person who can handle this kind of game. It is suggestively violent to both people and goats. The devil is your master. The graphics are broken and there is no story. You are a goat. If any of these qualities seem unappealing to you, run. Go back to your Kinectimals and your Hay Day. This game will not give you hours of tender goat nurturing or fake crop watering. But you can turn a goat into a whale... so, there's that.