It’s true. Goat Simulator is back, and this time it’s in space. Last year, we reviewed Goat Simulator: The Bundle, which contained the MMO Simulator and Goat-Z expansions, giving it an average score; now it’s time to review the latest expansion, Waste of Space.
This new expansion sees the goat crash-landing on a space colony, where it then must help rebuild the settlement through crowd-funding. To raise the money to rebuild, you must headbutt crates and people, causing funds to drop. It’s a funny mechanic, but it gets old very quickly, and it’s not long before the repetitiveness begins to wear thin. Fortunately, it’s not long before you’re given the option of completing missions that allow you to continue unlocking locations on the colony.
To begin with, let’s get right into things by saying that Goat Simulator is not made to be a great game. It’s made as a joke, and you shouldn’t take it seriously, as was mentioned in the previous review. It’s hard to ignore Waste of Space’s flaws, and believe me, there are a lot of them (bugs plague almost every aspect of the game). Some of the bugs are funny, but some are just downright game-breaking, with my playthrough ending abruptly when my goat phased through a wall and got his tongue stuck to a lightsabre inside the store. I was stuck trying to escape for a good five minutes before finally giving up and quitting. This was not the first time something like this happened, and at that stage it was just infuriating rather than amusing.
One of the highlights of Waste of Space is the sheer amount of references to sci-fi pop culture. They fit in so well, such as the UI, which is reminiscent of Mass Effect, and a fast vehicle that is clearly a reference to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. These inclusions are fun, but as fun as it is to find a shop filled with lightsabres, when you get stuck in the wall of said shop, the fun ends rather abruptly. It’s a shame that there are so many issues present, particularly when you consider that Waste of Space released a year ago on PS4, so you’d think that the more game-breaking bugs would have been fixed, even if some of the funnier ones are kept in.
A major criticism in last year’s review was the controls, which we described as “clunky and unresponsive”. After playing Waste of Space, it’s safe to say that not much has changed on that front. The only change, in fact, is that the controls are no longer a major criticism. Unfortunately, that’s not due to them being fixed, it’s because the game’s other issues take precedence. Tried to make a jump, but missed, due to the restrictive controls causing you to slam head-first into a wall? That’s fine, you probably clipped straight through the wall anyway.
Unfortunately, there are more negatives to talk about than there are positives, but that’s not to say that there aren’t some positives. When it works, Waste of Space is damn good fun. There’s not really much to gain from playing, and there’s no real sense of progression other than unlocking new areas, but running around a sandbox in space as a goat is so silly, it’s hard not to play with a smile on your face.
It would not be difficult to use the summary from our last Goat Simulator review to end this one, as it’s essentially the same game…but in space. However, as a fan of sci-fi, I’d say the new setting is a welcome addition, more so than the zombie apocalypse and fantasy land added by the previous expansions. However, sticking sci-fi tropes into an already heavily-flawed game has not fixed any criticisms it previously had. It’s still mindless fun, and its silliness will have you grinning, but its many issues drag it down, which is a real shame.