Goliath (PC)

Oh robots, you are a gaming delight. Whether I am destroying you, building you into an unstoppable killing machine to unleash robo-death on my enemies, stopping you from taking over the world or just casually sending you to robot hell, robots are always welcome in my gaming library. Goliath has you creating and upgrading your own customizable mechs made of wood, stone, metal, and more as you fight to survive in a harsh climate with scant resources and monsters everywhere. With me so far?

 

Where Are We Now?

Goliath is a top down open-word (ish) RPG/ Survival title by developer Whalebox Studio. You take on the role of a young soldier who has crashed his plane (seemingly on another planet) and looks like a total badass. I zoomed in on my character in the opening minutes and literally said “Aww, hell yeah”. You have a robot arm, a sweet-ass leather jacket, a fierce scowl and a big ol’ six-gun on your hip. You look awesome as you begin your mission, setting up a “camp” (a click of a button manifests your tent and campfire where you create and upgrade items) and heading to the wreckage of your plane to figure out how you warped from earth to wherever the hell you are now.

After murdering a few rabbits for no better reason than it’s my God-given right as a man to do so, I collected the coins rabbits are notoriously known to carry and spoke to my co-pilot Dave via, radio who had some convenient fill-in-the-blank information for me. Turns out we aren’t on planet earth anymore (what?) but luckily there are easily repairable teleporters strewn about the planet. Also, in Goliath, simply uttering the phrase “It would be great to have armor, because armor protects people” apparently enables me to suddenly create large mechs out of a variety of materials. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but I was too eager to build my first mech to really care. In fact, that’s a good mentality to hold on to, because there are quite a few moments in the story where they just sort of present things and say “here ya go”. Overall I wish that the story would have been a little stronger in general, but luckily the writing is witty and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny enough to keep you cruising along past the glaring gaps and plot holes.

 

Mechanical Machinations

In Goliath, building and customizing the mechs is the star of the show. You can build and create different items in your camp and use them to upgrade your robot, and there is a lot of running around collecting items and parts to make your mech tougher. The crafting system is easy to understand and laid out in a very straightforward way that makes customization a breeze. The different mechs have passive abilities, and three attacks that are a blend between area-of-effect, melee, and ranged. Each mech handles differently, and fooling around with each one is a blast. The passive abilities are for the most part tailored to the particular mech you are using; iron mechs rust in the rain and will suffer a movement penalty, while rain and wet conditions heal the wooden mech, and wood mechs are susceptible to fire while the stone mech largely ignores it. The abilities are fun to figure out, and most of the special abilities of your robots are cleverly incorporated into the gameplay.

The gameplay itself is simplistic but fun. You unlock attacks and abilities for yourself and your mechs as you progress, leveling up your robot stable and discovering new ways to annihilate your enemies. The exploration is helped greatly by a mini-map that automatically shows you the path you need to take, and it auto-corrects itself like a GPS when you head off the path it has chosen for you. The combat is good but a bit repetitive at times. I can’t fault the devs much here as obviously a lot of thought has gone into each mech, their attacks, passive abilities and special moves, but I still wish that there was a little more to the fighting than kiting enemies and clicking the attack button like crazy as you wait for your special moves to regenerate. Don’t get me wrong, the mechs are a blast to pilot and fight with, but the combat can get repetitive, largely because of the enemy AI. Enemies, be they some kind of yeti-creature, giants, charging pig-rhinos, or monstrous spiders all seem to have two modes; blissfully unaware or headlong swarming death charge. Once you find other enemy mechs to fight, the combat can get pretty crazy, but too often I found myself running away from a fight, putting a hill or obstacle in between me and my pursuers, waiting for them to forget me, then running back at them and unloading my special attacks before repeating the process. It’s fun, but I wish there was a little more finesse to the combat, or maybe just more intelligent enemies.

Larger Than Life

The look of the game is great. It’s cartoonish and almost comic-booky in its animation style, which fits the tone perfectly. The different factions you can join (by doing nigh-endless fetch quests) and the characters in general are all a lot of fun to look at, from a tribe of talking foxes to aliens and spider monsters. The mechs themselves look great as well, with some of them reminding me of the animation style of The Iron Giant. When you see them, you’ll really want to pilot them and see what they can do, and you’re always eager to find the next mech. Attack animations are colorful and smooth, and the enemies are fun and varied. The weather is dynamic and changes from moment to moment, so you’ll see the sun rapidly set, chill winds blowing through a frozen tundra or a peaceful rain beginning to lightly fall in the jungle. The sound fits in well overall, but sometimes the music would just stop, or I would swear there should be a sound effect when there wasn’t. It was a small thing that didn’t detract much from the overall experience, but I have heard complaints from other players that were more serious than my minor problems. There are no voiceovers for the hero or others, but the writing style is funny and making dialogue choices that you read rather than hear made me feel like I was playing a throwback to old-school NES games.  

 


Summary

Goliath is a great game that combines RPG, survival and action adventure elements into a fun package with a lot to do. The price is low ($19.99) on Steam, and you’ll more than get your money’s worth from exploring every nook and cranny of the game’s large world and customizing your mechs into ultimate machines of war. The gameplay could be a bit better in terms of the fighting, but you’ll likely be too busy destroying everything so you can to race back to base and upgrade your mech to care too much.



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2017-05-01 21:45:34... - Benjamin

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