“You should know better than to stumble through mysterious portals. Yet here you are, a stranger in a strange land made from the jumbled fragments of a hundred dead civilizations. And for better or worse, you are not alone. A war rages between strange factions, but all tremble before the giant creatures that stop across the land.
Time to bring some balance to the world with a giant robotic fist! You’re a handy sort, exactly the type of person that can learn how to build giant robotic suits. So get exploring! Find the plans, find the parts, assemble the machines, and show the creatures in this strange world who’s the boss.”
– The official Goliath website (www.goliath-game.com)
-Crafting Goliaths is pretty sweet –
Goliath kicks off by throwing the main character, the mechanical armed Gromov, into the deep end when he crash lands his plane in a mysterious and dangerous land. From there he has to start gathering resources, combing them and creating the tools and items he needs to survive.
Ok, so that may not sound like too original of a concept, but I haven’t mentioned the giant beasts you’re able to craft – the Goliaths! Starting with a Goliath made of wood, you’ll either control it yourself and wreak destruction upon your foes or have it support you as you venture through the dangerous wilderness of the world around you.
You’ll eventually get to create more advanced Goliaths that vary in design and skill sets. Whilst the cosmetic changes are pretty cool (let’s face it, metallic Goliaths are always going to be cooler than wooden ones), the differences they each have are pretty impressive too – you’re even able to fully customise the weapons of your Goliath.
– Great visual design –
One thing Goliath has got spot-on is its great visuals. With a cel-shaded style, plenty of colour and awesome character design, Goliath is pleasing on the eye from the moment you start playing.
I was particularly impressed with the character design. Whilst Goliaths are enjoyable to craft, it’s made all the more satisfying when you see how sweet the end product looks. The same can be said for the enemies too. You encounter a wacky variety of enemies throughout your adventure and each one of them looks great – in their own menacing way of course.
– Combat is simple but satisfying –
Whilst the majority of the game is built around crafting, you at least get to take your newly created Goliaths into combat. Whilst combat is fairly simple, it’s certainly enjoyable – you can get up close and personal and smash your foes to pieces, or if you prefer you can use the forces of nature and burn your enemies. The choice is yours, but no matter what weapon you choose you’ll have a lot of fun using it.
– It’s another crafting game –
This isn’t necessarily too much of a negative point, especially if you like the genre, but Goliath falls into the category of video games based around crafting. Sure, it ups the ante by allowing you to craft ridiculously cool Goliaths, but the whole process of finding and combining resources is not only incredibly repetitive but so common place these days that the genre is starting to feel a little saturated. It’s all down to personal choice though and let’s face it, people are still totally obsessed with playing Minecraft so why can’t titles like Goliath make it too?
– Environments can feel a little bland –
After being impressed with the art design of the game’s characters, Goliaths and monsters, I couldn’t help but to feel a little disappointed with the environments. Whilst they’re certainly not ugly nor lacking in variety, I couldn’t help but to find them a little dull. There wasn’t enough going on in them and with so much open space in the open world the lack of character was very noticeable. It’s not the case all of the time though with the game featuring some really neat places to check out – it just isn’t consistent enough, often leaving me desiring more from the huge world I was exploring.
With Goliath you have another crafting game, except this one allows you to create your own giant beasts to take down your foes – sweet, right? Whilst it gets a lot of things right you are left playing yet another game that sees you follow the rinse and repeat formula of gathering resources and crafting. If that’s for you then you can’t go wrong with Goliath thanks to its satisfying combat and great art design. If you are fed up of resource gathering and crafting though you may want to give it a miss.
Developer: Whalebox Studio (www.goliath-game.com)
Publisher: Octopus Tree (www.octopustreegames.com)
Release Date: 12/05/2016
Format(s): PC
