A serious review of the Goat Heist

[Malidictus]

And no, that's not sarcasm. Also yes, I'm aware everyone's making their own threads. If everybody's unique snowflake opinion deserves its own thread, then my own worthless opinion gets one as well.

Day 1:

This came as a surprise to me. I know someone mentioned the Longfellow, but I wasn't expecting an entire heist centred around it, which this one basically is. The game starts you right next to it and gives you absolutely no direction, other than to get the goats. In fact, it gave me so little direction I took off running at first and didn't even notice the car was on the map. To be honest, Day 1 isn't large neough to require the Longfellow, but it's very hadny to have. Avoids putting Bag Tossing Simulator in this Goat Simulator.

Day 1 is dirt simple in concept - it's a scavenger hunt. Drive around the map, look for goats. They light up with a yellow outline as soon as you get close and look at them, same as money bundles on Birth of Sky, which is actually quite convenient. The map is pretty big in terms of physical space, but it's also kind of empty. Most of the building exteriors are basically just retaining walls. There ARE, however, numerous locations which can be entered into or explored, usually for Goats. Most of them are actually quite pretty, though the rest of the map is decidedly low-rent - the price you pay for larger maps.

Some goats on Day 1 are standing around in the open on street corners or inside parks, sort of like the goofy people in Katamari Damaci. Several of them, however, constitute mini-events, sometimes very sizeable ones. I ran into a goat on a scaffolding which I needed to shut down the power before I could climb (a fallen pole had electrified it), a goat on top of a light pole that I had to cut down with the Aftershock deployable SAW and a goat hanging off the window of a burning building. That last one required me to find valves to turn on sprinklers, move fallen beams and make my way through maze-like building to get to it, which is a pretty sizeable affair.

There are also ATMs peppered throughout the map, usually out in the street. I'm rather glad to see this, because it gives some purpose to my SAW, which newer maps have tended to forget exists. Winters also turns out, and it took me a while to find him. Thought I could run him over with the car, but he's clever. Look for a narrow stretch of sidewalk surrounded by bollards under a building. That's where the camps out. I found he's easy to flank between the column supporting the building above and a car parked on the other side. Push come to shove, you can always park your own car on one side and use that as cover.

Overall, I actually kind of like Day 1. Like Birth of Sky, it really frustrated me at first, what with not knowing where to go, what to do or how snipers keep shooting at me through trees (seriously, stop doing that!), but I imagine it'll be a ton of fun once you learn where the goats spawn. It has a VERY serious danger of getting split up and fairly little cover, however, so good team communication is essential. Always look back before you speed off in the car, folks. We have a button for that now.

Day 2:

It's basically GO Bank. You start out in a barn and get attacked by thugs. You have to hold out against them and the cops until the Ace Pilot from the GO Bank drops you a cage. Assemble the cage, put the goats in the cage, raise the balloon, wait for the pilot to get it on the third try... And you're about half-way done. Be careful with the goats - though it may not seem so in Day 1, the cops can and will actually steal them. There are boards lying aroung with which to board up windows on the barn, but I didn't see much point to it. However, it FINALLY happened - we have a Boards asset to purchase at the start of the heist, which drops four bundles at the starting semi, I believe.

The map is actually quite pretty. Rather reminds me of the Advisor barn from Half-Life 2 for some reason. It takes place somewhere in the forest, and the forest itself has an air of L4D2's Cold Stream. It's made well enough, though it's full of invisible walls where you can't follow the river. Not that you should be trying to - I got my goats stolen and got bushwacked by a SWAT Van Turret while I was out exploring. Which reminds me - you don't get a warning for the Turrets on this map like you do on others. Watch for the laser beam, it's in a pretty bad spot.

The map gets very Meltdown-y once you've secured the goats, however, since what follows is a non-timed escape in the Longfellow. I presume the route is random, but it takes you up and down a twisting mountain road past a whole bunch of angry Turrets until a rotating bridge. Find the control room, turn the brige. I got a nasty surprise when the previously safe and secure control room suddenly raised its shutters and turned into a killing field of windows on all sides. Oops! Luckily, the map is over pretty much as soon as the bridge turns, because there are a couple more turns in the road before you have to drive the car back into the semi, I presume from Day 1. Which I botched so bad I got the car stuck and had to manoeuvre for five minutes until I got it in. Five minutes during which no cops attacked me because they can't cross the bridge and don't spawn by the tunnel, presumably.

I'm a bit less well-disposed towards Day 2 as it's mostly just holding out and waiting in a very exposed map. My skyhook cage location - which I presume is random - was among a bunch of giant hay bales, right next to a cop spawn point and without solid cover near enough the cage. The barn itself has entrances from all directions and is full of windows, plus the spawns seemed very very heavy to me. Could be because I spent a good third of it sitting on a spawn point, though, with cops constantly rapelling down a tall cliff on the edge of the map.

I laughed:

Honestly, I'm generally not easily amused and I don't find Goat Simulator itself in any way funny. A friend of mine owns it and I've asked him to just not tell me about it. That game annoys me. However, I nevertheless still laughed or at the very least snickered on a number of occasions during this heist. Let's look at some of those.

Goats are bags. They don't move, they don't run away, they don't do anything other than bags. But they're ♥♥♥♥ing goats! Goats that you can throw for bloody miles, it seems like, and they ragdoll through the air like a majestic eagle piloting a blimp. Their torsos seem solid, but their legs and their necks flop around like slinkies. I realise we're supposed to be dry and humourless here, but if you guys can throw a goat and keep a straight fave, then you have no soul. It's not the height of comedy, but it's still funny. I ended up chuckling every time I tossed the poor things like sacks - which is what they were.

The Longfellow holds three goats in the trunk, laid side by side like they're dead. Buy you know they aren't, becuase they bleat when you throw them. This is just... Such a weird sight. Vlad wants you to deposit the goats in two cages, each of which holds 8 (implying the map can spawn a total of 16) and the things stack like luggage on top of each other. It's difficult to describe just how wrong that looks unless you see it.

The cops take this very seriously, though. I snorted a laugh through my nose when a cop yelled at me to "Drop the goat!" with a very stern, serious tone. That one caught me off guard. They'll also attempt to confiscate the goats. Yeah, just roll that sentence around in your head. I had to do a double-take when I looked towards my stack of goats and saw their silhouettes moving in a line. The cops look hilariously ridiculous carrying out the goats, but they obviously take their job very seriously. And it stops being funny pretty damn quick once you realise you have to recover the stupid things.

Finally, "extracting" the coke. All throughout Day 1 I'd presumed the game was going for the darker tone where we killed the goats and were going to butcher them for the drugs inside. Then on Day 2 I was greeted with a pile of sideways, bleeting goats and a guy who told me how "This will neither be pretty nor clean." Then I realised he was wearing thick blue rubber gloves and had a bottle of hand lotion on the table next to him. Took me a few seconds to get the joke, and to be honest I kind of wish I hadn't. Butchering the goats would have been less disturbing. Luckily, thugs busted in and interrupted him, leaving me with a pile of goats at my feet liked I'd tried to summon Bielzebub.

Conclusions:

I don't know if the Goat Heist is worth 7 Euro, but it's definitely worth some amount of money more than "free." It does reuse a lot of assets for Day 1 and multiple existing mechanics for Day 2, but then so does Hotline Miami. The driving is a bit... Annoying and the car has a nasty reflecion that makes it hard to see through the windhield, but there's a lot of heist here. It's amusing, it's pretty sizeable and I personally like it quite a bit. Not as much as the Point Break heists, but enough to not regret my purchase. It's not at all what I was expecting, but it's pretty cool. I'd play it again, definitely. Besides, we finally got another two-day heist. That alone is noeworthy.

[linkfire12]

TF2's promotions are an iffy subject, but usually the cosmetics themselves are somewhat cohesively attached to the games outlandish nature, but it's not a perfect system.

What they have been doing lately is holding community workshop contests for making items for the promotions, and the creators, like always, get a cut of the profit.

Then again, they did a promo for Arkham Knight, screw warner brothers.

[Archwraith]

TF2 is known as hat simulator these days.

[linkfire12]

Publicado originalmente por Ahab:

TF2 wasn't outlandish untill valve mutated it in to what it is today

Not exactly true, but there is a heck tonne of good things about the game to back up it's business practice. At least to a extent, criticisms of the games transactions are valid, but none of the games actual content costs anything itself.

[linkfire12]

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

TF2 is known as hat simulator these days.

Tis, but it's fun. A strange occurence, but they managed to make microtransactions enjoyable for alot of people. They were more careful about it's integration than most companies.

I also think over 80 official maps and full modding support, money given to the community, a yearly videos award with the free filmaking tool, charity events, a competitive scene, a full brand new coop mode, massive weapon rebalances and entire new dynamics (the pyro never used to have airblast, and engi originally couldn't pick up buildings), and the fact they managed to maintain community support and goodwill for slightly less than a decade makes the ability to buy a russian dance not so bad.

[linkfire12]

It's also still free, and doesn't have 120 US dollars of DLC.

[BushElito]

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

TF2 is known as hat simulator these days.

Tis, but it's fun. A strange occurence, but they managed to make microtransactions enjoyable for alot of people. They were more careful about it's integration than most companies.

I also think over 80 official maps and full modding support, money given to the community, a yearly videos award with the free filmaking tool, charity events, a competitive scene, a full brand new coop mode, massive weapon rebalances and entire new dynamics (the pyro never used to have airblast, and engi originally couldn't pick up buildings), and the fact they managed to maintain community support and goodwill for slightly less than a decade makes the ability to buy a russian dance not so bad.

Yeah, sad that the TF2 team is small now.
The only problem I see currently is the overhypes that happen.

[BushElito]

Publicado originalmente por Ahab:

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Not exactly true,

Orange box tf2 is the original non outlandish version consoles still have that version untouched by the changes.

It isn't updated cause Micro$oft wanted to force Valve to make paid DLC instead of free updates.
And I think they wanted to charge Valve with those updates.

[linkfire12]

Publicado originalmente por Ahab:

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Not exactly true,

Orange box tf2 is the original non outlandish version and consoles still have that version untouched by the changes.

I know what your talking about... it's still incredibly tongue in cheek and stylised.

And that tone hasn't been diminished either, even with all the new content the same core game is still there. Heck, the original maps are actually some of the worst balanced in the game, with all the huge amounts of new features added.

[Archwraith]

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

It's also still free, and doesn't have 120 US dollars of DLC.

Well, only need to buy something from the mann co store to receive most benefit from the game like trades, better drops, etc. However they really are weird in weapon rebalancing though. One day shifts a, next they nerf A and buff B.

The community is now really on hot stuff about weapons.

[BushElito]

Publicado originalmente por Ahab:

Publicado originalmente por BushElito:

It isn't updated cause Micro$oft wanted to force Valve to make paid DLC instead of free updates.
And I think they wanted to charge Valve with those updates.

Probably the ps version as well, but still they are the original game far separated from what it has become on pc today.

I know.
I was just saying why it was never updated.

[linkfire12]

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

It's also still free, and doesn't have 120 US dollars of DLC.

Well, only need to buy something from the mann co store to receive most benefit from the game like trades, better drops, etc. However they really are weird in weapon rebalancing though. One day shifts a, next they nerf A and buff B.

The community is now really on hot stuff about weapons.

Phlog "cough cough"

To be fair, alot of their rebalances are for the better, previously useless items have become amazing. I am keen to see when they do their next rebalence update.

I refuse to heal Phloggers when I play medic.

[Archwraith]

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

Well, only need to buy something from the mann co store to receive most benefit from the game like trades, better drops, etc. However they really are weird in weapon rebalancing though. One day shifts a, next they nerf A and buff B.

The community is now really on hot stuff about weapons.

Phlog "cough cough"

To be fair, alot of their rebalances are for the better, previously useless items have become amazing. I am keen to see when they do their next rebalence update.

I refuse to heal Phloggers when I play medic.

:(

Well honestly, I only run Phlog to mess around with people. As well as now airblast is really weak since people can just airstrafe now. A big blow towards Pyro mains. Degreaser becomes junk, axtinguisher becomes junk, ugh...

The one that's good from tough break is panic attack becomes a viable choice right now.

(We're wayyyyyy derailing the thread too much at this point)

[linkfire12]

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Phlog "cough cough"

To be fair, alot of their rebalances are for the better, previously useless items have become amazing. I am keen to see when they do their next rebalence update.

I refuse to heal Phloggers when I play medic.

:(

Well honestly, I only run Phlog to mess around with people. As well as now airblast is really weak since people can just airstrafe now. A big blow towards Pyro mains. Degreaser becomes junk, axtinguisher becomes junk, ugh...

The one that's good from tough break is panic attack becomes a viable choice right now.

(We're wayyyyyy derailing the thread too much at this point)

Pff, who cares? :P

I didn't notice anything change with airblast, but then again I haven't been juggled, but when I played pyro, it was fine, I kicked ass, and airblast was amazing as ever. I was reflecting and shooting people off cliffs in no time.

I don't actually use the degreaser at the moment, I use the stock, and with a faster weapon switch and hp from extringuishing, it's more badass than ever.

[Archwraith]

Publicado originalmente por linkfire12:

Publicado originalmente por Archwraith:

:(

Well honestly, I only run Phlog to mess around with people. As well as now airblast is really weak since people can just airstrafe now. A big blow towards Pyro mains. Degreaser becomes junk, axtinguisher becomes junk, ugh...

The one that's good from tough break is panic attack becomes a viable choice right now.

(We're wayyyyyy derailing the thread too much at this point)

Pff, who cares? :P

I didn't notice anything change with airblast, but then again I haven't been juggled, but when I played pyro, it was fine, I kicked ass, and airblast was amazing as ever. I was reflecting and shooting people off cliffs in no time.

I don't actually use the degreaser at the moment, I use the stock, and with a faster weapon switch and hp from extringuishing, it's more badass than ever.

Mostly, when I use Phlog, I use the selfish-pyro set, Phlog, Scorch, and Backscratcher. Scorch can fills Mmmph meter.

Stock pyro becomes scary, while degreaser becomes real weak these days.

Anyway, gonna be away for a while. Catch ya later.

[linkfire12]

Cya