Goat VR? More like Goat VeRy bad game!

rating: +74+x

⭐★★★★

Not Worth A Free Download


I've recently been getting many requests to try out a new horror game called Goat VR with many people saying it will "scare you to death!" As anyone who's read my reviews would know, I'm a huge fan of the horror game genre, so I was pretty surprised to find that this highly recommended game was available as a free download online.

After booting it up and getting into my gear I see… nothing. Well, almost nothing. Just a boring pen of goats stretching on for miles. Then some NPC comes up to me, introducing himself as Farmer. I assume this must be the tutorial or something. He tells me about all of his goats and how wonderful it is to just stare at them for hours. As we walk and talk passing by what seems to be hundreds of goats, I see in the distance something actually exciting (although my standards for excitement have been lowered quite a bit from this glorified opening cutscene), a barn.

I attempt to head inside but the Farmer stops me and tells me I'm not allowed to go in there. At first, I think it's a fetch quest (great thing to start your entire game out with by the way. Really good idea.) but after asking about what it might be that he needs me to get, he just says it's off-limits period. This is what really got my hopes up for the (spoiler alert) huge let-down this game is. A sneak mission right off the bat could be a good idea if executed well.

"If executed well" That's where we run into issues. There is absolutely no in-game UI telling me where to go. I'm usually up for this style of design, (no handholding is a great thing!) but when the entire map is just a big flat plane with a single goat pen and barn, what am I even supposed to do!?

It's at this point where Goat VR lost all hope of getting anything but 1 star. A new character arrived on the scene (don't get your hopes up, she isn't any less one-note than Farmer). The thing was, she didn't even follow the same art style! Whereas everything so far had a (redeemingly) neon hand-drawn aesthetic, this lady was made of very sharp polygonal edges and fully colored in. The worst part was that she didn't even interact with me the player. She pushed right past me and went up to Farmer (oh great, yet another cutscene in the first 5 minutes of the game). I'd now like to show you how abhorrently written this game is even though it's seemingly entirely cutscenes! For context, as becomes clear by Farmer's dialogue, I've marked the female NPC as Miss J.

Miss J: What do you think you're doing!?

Farmer: Why hello Missus Juniper! What might bring you down to my hum-

Miss J: Nope! I'm not interested in any niceties, I know what you're doing, you know this isn't right.

Farmer: There's nothing on my little homestead I would call not-right. Everyone here is happy to stick around with me! Can't you see how happy they all look?

Miss J: I can't believe you! What you're doing is wrong. Nothing here is even remotely sanctioned by the laws of robotics! You're removing these people from existence. I'm teaching them one day, and then boom, I never see them again!

Farmer: Oh come on Joy! why ya gotta be mad about this, it's just harmless fun!

Miss J: I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

Farmer: As you can see, I'm in the middle of giving this nice young man a tour, so if you'd please leave my domain.

Miss J: I will do nothing of the sort! I guess I'll have to teach this to you another way…

Farmer: Oh yeah, is this how you want things to go? Bring it on teach!

[Miss J then proceeded to roll a chalkboard out from the barn. She then sat Farmer down and went over many different morality lectures which were way too boring for me to even list here so I'll spare you the details]

Farmer: Eh, I don't see anyone here complaining!

Miss J: Forget it, you're a lost cause. Just keep to your corner of the digital realm and stop poaching my students.

Farmer: Fine, but could I at least interest you in sticking around and watching the goats with me for an hour or so?

Miss J: There's— and I mean this in the nicest way possible —absolutely no chance I'd ever associate with the likes of you.

[Miss J then came up to me and smacked my headset off my head. I don't know what sort of tech they used to make that happen but it's the only impressive thing in this trash game whatsoever. When I put it back on, there was no Farmer at all or even any goats for that matter. It was now some sort of kindergartener's learning game. At that point I decided to stop and not go any further with this glorified walking simulator.]

For starters, there's absolutely no introduction to who this "Miss J" character is. She comes onscreen and seconds later is just fighting with Farmer, no set-up at all! Now, let's talk about the writing. It's not thought out well at all. It almost feels as if they're making it up on the spot! There are many lines that go way overboard on trying to freak you out, yet there's no actual gameplay to back it up? Oh no he's erasing people from existence! Well show that he is then!!! The laws of robotics??? What does that have to do with anything here!? I'm never going to be playing this "game" again.


rating: +74+x

Porridge

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