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Wacky, wild, and way more of a game than last time - Goat Simulator 3 Quick Review

17K View2022-11-23

Don’t adjust your glasses. You did not miss Goat Simulator 2; no, the goofballs at Coffee Stain Studios just chose the title Goat Simulator 3 for the sequel to the surprise comedy hit from 2014. That’s not the only surprise here either. This off-the-wall game is full of bizarre and often hilarious parodies of open-world gaming. The biggest shocker, though? Where the first Goat Simulator was more of a one-note joke, Goat Simulator 3 actually feels like a really thoughtfully designed game!

THE STORY

There actually is a story in Goat Simulator 3, albeit a very lighthearted one. You play as Pilgor, a goat who can also transform into a variety of other animals, such as a giraffe (aka Tall Goat), a pig (aka Tasty Goat), and a skateboarding shark (aka Tony Shark). You run around a giant open-world map completing small quests to help people, competing in minigames, and generally bringing down a lot of chaos. And all the while, you can use strange towers dotted around the map to teleport to a mystical goat castle that grows in size as you progress. Pretty nifty!

PLATFORMS

Goat Simulator 3 is available on PC exclusively via the Epic Games Store, as well as on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X. I played on PC, and aside from a pretty hefty initial load time, I didn’t run into any major problems. I mean besides all the bugs, but...

TIME PLAYED

I’ve already sunk ten hours into Goat Simulator 3, with that time split evenly between playing single-player and playing the new online co-op. In that ten hours, I’ve completed around half of the game’s quests and activities and have made it up to the final boss, but there are still tons of tasks to finish and collectibles to find.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• It’s an actual game! This seems silly to list as a positive, but for as much as I appreciated the first Goat Simulator, it was mostly just a silly (and incredibly buggy) toy. Goat Simulator 3, by comparison, actually features such innovations as a structure and progression and meaningful goals. It’s great!

• Tighter control. Part of the joy and chaos of the first Goat Simulator was just how loosely Pilgor controlled. There’s still enough of that flimsy flopping around to have fun with it, but when you need to do more precise platforming, the controls allow for it. It even has a triple jump straight out of Super Mario 64!

• Constant surprises. The humor in Goat Simulator 3 was hit or miss for me—some of the puns are, uh, pretty brutal—but I appreciated the game’s dedication to constantly throwing new things at players. Each quest and challenge provides unlockable outfit pieces, and many of those come with new abilities, from the power to transform people into walking bananas to a full-on UFO that you can fly around the map, freely shooting lasers at people. My personal favorite moment was walking into an unassuming basement in the yard of a random farmhouse only to find myself transported into a goat-themed parody of Wolfenstein 3D.

• Online co-op. The first Goat Simulator had split-screen co-op for two players, but Goat Simulator 3 expands to online with up to four players. In addition to helping friends complete quests and find collectibles, you can also take part in minigames with friends or strangers via open games. I cannot understate what a blast it was playing co-op with my nine-year-old son and causing anarchy wherever we went.

WHAT SUCKS

• Bugs. To be fair, being a buggy mess was kind of part of the charm of the first game, but I can’t say I got a lot of amusement out of falling through the map over and over, or encountering yet another quest that just wouldn’t work until I restarted the game.

• Too much chaos? Again, this is part of the appeal of the series. But there are moments where Goat Simulator 3’s devotion to chaos gets in the game’s own way. A prime example: One of the “rewards” for completion of a quest involving some ballerinas is that a couple of massive tornadoes spawn on the map and move in circles around the area. It was a cool surprise that had me laughing at the spectacle of my goat getting flung through the air. Then I realized that the tornadoes stick around for good. There’s no way to turn them off, and they inevitably got in the way of me completing other quests over and over. Very frustrating!

SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?

More than likely, yes! If you liked the first Goat Simulator at all or have a soft spot for games that can pull off comedy and off-the-wall fun, Goat Simulator 3 is well worth your time. The bugs and weird design choices can be annoying, but this game is still genuinely a blast to play, especially if you’re in co-op. And it provides much more structure, direction, and reward than last time, which makes me excited to see if or how they’ll build on the game through DLC.

💬 What is your favorite variety of goat? Personally I love Tasty Goat, but I think Tall Goat has its charms. Share your pick in the comments!

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