The world is changed.

What was once is no longer.

I can forgive you for not noticing, of course. Today was, in appearances at least, much like yesterday. But I must tell you, this is an illusion. The truth is far stranger. You see, last night, while you slept (or more likely, considering our demographic, drank and marauded) a single flake of the infinite fell into our world. Today is not like yesterday. The game has changed.

“The game” in this context being Goat Simulator.

You herd.

When I first heard, I’d assumed like many (including its creators) that it was a joke, a myth, an amusing lampoon of the industry that seems to consider no job to banal to craft a simulator around it. But then, to the surprise of everyone, it’s creators most of all, people started to cry out for it. Now perhaps you think this ridiculous? Truth be told, so did I. Once.

I kept an eye out for developments, of course. It was announced as coming and I, in my hubris, thought to mock the flock. I pre-ordered and forgot about it. It’s just a joke, I told myself. Nothing will come of it.

Yet I sit here, with shaking hands, to tell you. The game has changed. I almost don’t believe they made it. But I have seen now, that mine was merely the ignorance of the uninitiated. And video gaming will never be the same.

Goat Simulator is, quite frankly, too perfect for this imperfect world.

I don’t need to tell you that goats are the most fucking metal animals on the face of the earth. (But here I fucking go anyway.) Aside from having the best type of facial hair both named after them and a fucking natural feature of their face, they’re also kick-ass in their own right. Like little satanic, take-no-shit versions of nature’s dumbest animals, goats can live on fucking vertical planes, survive off a diet of old condoms and unbridled, animalistic hate and, to top it all off, have blood that can summon Satan.
That’s not to say they’re evil, of course. It’s just that until humans invented guns, if a goat was bleeding it meant one of two things.

Either that some dumb motherfucker was trying to butcher one, of that the only animal more bad-ass (a dragon, if you’re wondering) was starting shit.
And if there’s two things the lesser prince of darkness loves, it’s watching humans get their asses kicked and seducing dragons. (The greater prince of darkness is, obviously, Ozzy. Though he’s more subtly supernatural, it’s still pretty obvious. There’s stuff he’s willingly injected into himself that’s banned by the Geneva Convention).

The only real test for a game like Goat Simulator is the same as any true simulator, that’s accuracy. Making a simulator is always going to be a fine line between trying to make a fun experience and trying to make a game. Though where this can be seen as a curse, Goat Sim is an unremitting success. Goats, as I’ve said, are the most badass creatures in the animal kingdom.

And this game provides that. For starters, you’re fucking invulnerable. Not invincible, sadly, but since it takes a head on collision with a truck to even phase you I’ll let that slide. Secondly your fierce head-butts fuck shit up for miles, which is a scientifically accurate description of goat behavior. And if you stand too close to walls you begin headbanging with the ferocity of a death metal front man. Which some people have termed to be a glitch, but I know better. All goats are, of course, one with the eldritch spirit of power core.

There’s not got a plot, of course. But that’s because goats don’t have a plot. Goats have a trail of wanton destruction. And so, too will you.

I fucking loved this game. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it taught me to love again.

It also made me think I was a goat, which is what took me so long in writing this review. It’s hard to write when your entire body has been shattered by a truck.

(A thousand thanks to MetalUnicorn, who provided her professional amateur MSPaint skills for this article. She’s almost as cool as a goat.)

Tags: Goat Simulator, Hollywood Metal, Luke M
Categorised in: Video Games