Goat Simulator

Coffee Stain Studios - 2014 - PC

I think there are pretty much two camps of people as it pertains to Goat Simulator. Those who think it's absolutely hilarious and those who get bored quickly while playing it and are slightly confused by the relative popularity of this game. I believe I fall in the latter camp. Just go watch some gameplay videos of Goat Simulator and you'll pretty much already know which camp you belong to without even having to play the game. I understand the humor though, and I get why people like the game. But the more I play Goat Simulator, the more I'm sure that I'm not this game's target audience.

Goat Simulator was a product of an internal game jam at Coffee Stain Studios. Some early footage of a demo of Goat Simulator was released on YouTube and the demand for a full game to be produced was very high. Because, you know, it's the internet. A full version of Goat Simulator was then launched on Steam earlier this year on April 1st. No really, it was. It's kind of an interesting game. It's maybe one of the truest sandbox games ever made. There's absolutely no objective. The entire gameplay of Goat Simulator relies on creating emergent humor through its admittedly broken physics engine. Have you ever been killed by a giant in Skyrim and seen this? Or seen the bizarre physics glitches in the FIFA or GTA games? The developers intentionally left these kinds of glitches in the Goat Simulator physics engine for comedic effect. And that's pretty much the game, just messing around with the physics engine in the game world. There is a scoring system similar to ones found in the old Tony Hawk skating games where points are awarded for doing various skating tricks. There's also some mini-missions and subquests, but it's pretty much just Messing Around: The Videogame

The aforementioned physics glitches in the Elder Scrolls, FIFA or GTA games are funny because they are unexpected and bizarre variations on our expectations of how the game should behave. In all of those games, there is (arguably) some semblance of realism or at least the attempt to make physics objects behave as they would in the real world. That's not really the case with Goat Simulator. I feel that the intentionally programmed physics bugs in Goat Simulator lose some of their comedic value because, while they still look ridiculous, they are completely expected by the player. You're not really expecting to headbutt a human NPC and have him just fall over. You expecting him to skyrocket unrealistically off into the horizon. And always having this constant expectation of humor somewhat diminished the comedic impact for me. I was almost disappointed when crazy stuff didn't always constantly happen while I was galavanting around in the game world. 

Summary:

If you're looking for an open ended, goofy sandbox game with ludicrous physics, Goat Simulator is your game. I didn't really enjoy it, but I'm also aware that this kind of game is not for me. It's obviously loved by its fans though, as it has tons of gameplay videos of ridiculous stuff on YouTube. I think a recent patch for the game added a couch co-op mode, which is cool. This is definitely the kind of game you'd want to share with friends.

Minecraft

Mojang - 2011 - PC/X360/XboxOne/PS3/PS4/Mobile/Vita

(On my Top 10 Favorite Games list)

Wooo 50 reviews! Wooo!! When selecting which games I'll write about each week, I give priority to the more obscure games that people may not have heard of. I think it's important to shine a spotlight on the smaller indie titles that may have slipped through the cracks. Games like To the Moon, The Swapper and The Stanley Parable all offer amazing unique experiences and are deserving of attention and discussion, but tend to run under the radar because they're not behind big publishers. I was thinking for my 50th review maybe I would review one of my all-time favorite video games. A game that I really love, like Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII. But nah, people already know about those games. So I'm here this week to shine a spotlight on a game you may not have heard of. It's a little indie game I discovered called Minecraft.

If you didn't pick up on the heavy sarcasm at the end of that last paragraph and/or are otherwise oblivious to the video game world, Minecraft is hugely popular. Like HUGE. To date, it's sold nearly 50 million copies across all platforms making it one of the best selling video games of all time, according to Wikipedia. That's more than the original Super Mario Bros. A public beta of Minecraft was released in 2009 and it spread like wildfire across the internet, solely through word of mouth. It was officially released in 2011 and has now made it's creator, Markus Persson (a.ka. Notch), like 97 trillion dollars from sales and merchandise. Don't look that last number up, but it's probably true.

So what makes Minecraft so popular? First of all, it's mind blowing. The first time I played Pokemon Red/Blue? Mind blown. First time I played Ocarina of Time? Mind blown. If you've never had your mind blown by a video game, I don't really know how to quantify that for you. The first week I owned Minecraft, I played it obsessively. And when I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about playing it. It's a completely absorbing experience. The other reason I think Minecraft is so popular is that there are just so many ways you can play the game. You can play it like a survival game where you forage for resources and see how long you can stay alive. You can play it like an exploration game, just traversing the vast landscapes and seeing what you'll discover. You can play it like a traditional single player game where you upgrade your weapons and equipment and eventually get strong enough to take down the final boss. You can play it like a creative game because the game engine literally allows you to construct whatever you can dream up, as long as you have the materials. Or you can play with friends and blow each other's stuff up. And the best part is that none of these playstyles are mutually exclusive.

I was a huge fan of LEGOs as a kid. And I guess I still am as an adult. So the creative building block element of Minecraft is really appealing to me. The entire world of Minecraft is randomly and procedurally generated each time you start a new game or explore a new area. The terrain that is generated is essentially just made up of little blocks that the game engine will allow you to remove and replace however you see fit. There's quite a bit possible with just that game mechanic alone. But then you add in the fact that there are rare blocks that are generated like the gold ore block or the diamond ore block that can be used to make more complex objects or tools in the game... this really makes the exploration aspect of the game addicting and satisfying. Then there's the redstone ore. Oh man the redstone. Minecraft's redstone actually allows the player to create complex circuitry with logic gates in the game of Minecraft. People have made calculators and functioning CPUs in the game of Minecraft. That's CRAZY. I hope that helps you understand what a powerful creative tool the engine of Minecraft is. Then there's the people that have recreated famous structures or landmarks in Minecraft. There's the Minecraft Enterprise, the world of Game of Thrones in Minecraft, and Pharrell Williams' "Happy" recreated in game through the engine of Minecraft. That's just awesome.

Summary:
If you want to learn more about Minecraft, its developers, and the impact it's had on the games industry, check out this pretty cool documentary on youtube. If you somehow haven't played this game, you really should give it a try. If you know me personally and want to play on my server, give me a shout. And if you're one of those people who've stayed clear of this game because "eww the graphics are bad", I'm gonna come smack you. You're missing out on one of the most important and unique video game experiences ever created.

Grand Theft Auto V

Rockstar North - 2013 - PS3/X360

Just from a sheer technological standpoint, I found this game quite impressive. To have an open world as large as GTA V did and with the amount of detail in the environments that this game had is pretty mind blowing. You can wander out in the middle of nowhere and look around and the environments will appear just as detailed and vibrant as they do in the heavy traffic city areas. Add on top of that the complex physics simulations and game systems, realistic character animations and large open world and this is probably the most technically impressive video game I've ever played. Especially when you consider that the game is running on 8 year old hardware.

Gameplay wise, it’s pretty much your standard GTA game. Drive around, blow stuff and cause chaos. What’s different about GTA V is that you can switch between one of three characters at nearly any time. The characters all have different personalities and missions as well as stats and abilities. One of the characters can do bullet time driving while one of the other characters can do bullet time…bullets.

The characters in GTA V all have distinct personalities and are incredibly well defined and well written. Especially when compared to other GTA games where I found all of the characters to be more or less forgettable. While I found the characters to be well written, I found a lot of the parts of the overall story to be hit and miss. Mostly miss. There were a lot of the parts of the story where the characters had no conceivable motivation to be doing what they were doing. Because the characters were so well written and defined, they sometimes felt out of place in story situations that were over the top. There’s a part in the story where one of the characters meets a total random stranger, flies up in a plane with him, rides an ATV out of the back of the plane and opens the parachute at the last possible second just for fun. Okay, but why? Why would my character decide to do this? Maybe I’m not supposed to take the story as seriously as I did, but the game seems to want me to. At least sometimes. GTA V seems to randomly decide to take the story quite seriously whenever it wants to and the tone oscillates between serious and ridiculous which is kind of jarring. The game will have you jumping ATVs out of planes one second, but then want you to care about these characters and their well being the next. Which didn't quite work for me.

But the fun of a GTA game is driving around and causing chaos, which this game does as well or better than any other GTA title. The missions were fun, no driving people around and having to call and chat with them constantly like GTA IV. There were only a small handful of missions in GTA V that I found to be boring or tedious. And there’s a frequent checkpointing system in the game so you’ll rarely need to replay a certain section of the mission over and over again if you fail. I've pretty much ignored the online portion of this game. I don’t know why, it just doesn't appeal to me.

Summary:
Overall, I found GTA V to be a pretty solid game, it’s my favorite in the series and I doubt fans of other GTA games will be dissapointed.