Remember the stories that we were told of giants. From David and Goliath to Willie the Giant in Disney’s Mickey and the Beanstalk to even Andre the Giant. All those characters had an enormous presence because they are well, giants. Big and very tall, some mean and some kind and misunderstood simply because they were different. Every time I heard the stories I almost felt bad for the giants as they didn’t fit this type of mold that everyone would like or hoped for. Sure you have some giants that would wreak havoc only because it was the only way that they knew how to get their meaning across and sometimes they didn’t want to be bothered at all. But does Developer Knocktwice Games bring the fun and action of being a giant? Let’s find out with Good Goliath for the PlayStation VR.
In Good Goliath, we learn that there used to be giants around, but not really anymore and knowledge of any existing has vanished. Well, that is until that one day when out of nowhere, you the giant, have fallen onto a barn in the town of Pleasantville and no one knows your name, not even you know what your name is. So are named Goliath and as good as you are, you really just want to go home and not harm anyone. At this point, I feel for Goliath. Here he is falling from the sky with only a barn to support his fall and just wanting to go home safe.
But what does a town do when a homesick giant lands on their barn on their land, they tie him up because of the unknown. But what does one do if they are a giant in that situation where you have angry villagers trying to attack you with weapons? Well, one could try and escape or one could take any weapons that are being thrown at them and throw them back as you knock out waves of enemies. Weapons can be from boulders to spears to even other villagers. Yes, these villagers will do whatever it takes in order to hurt poor Goliath that they will launch their own people at the giant. But that’s ok as you can catch the weapons and villagers that are thrown at you and throw them back.
So before you start trying to go in all aggressive like, make sure both Move controllers are ready to go as you will need them to catch and throw weapons, villagers, and other objects such as TNT, back at the waves of misunderstood villagers of Pleasantville. What you will want to do is pay attention to your lower left and you can see how many targets you need to knock out in order to move on to the next wave. But keep in mind, not all targets are on the ground. Some targets can be on buildings and ships or maybe even flying around. So feel free to throw objects at the buildings as they are destructible which feels pretty awesome to take them out.
One of the things I did enjoy is when you start to get in the water levels of the pirates. When pirates get launched at you, you can simply throw them in the water only to have a shark or sharks jump out and catch and throw them at the pirates. One of the waves you get up close with the ship and being able to throw sharks on the deck and watch them go after the pirates is pretty funny.
But what happens if the waves of enemies keep coming and for some reason you miss them and you lose all your health? Well, after a certain amount of waves, you do get to checkpoints which are nice, however, once you do get to a boss and defeat the boss, you do get penalized for using the checkpoint. I am still thinking if this is a fun punishment of some kind or actually more of a challenge of trying to not have all your health gone. Probably the challenging part, but geez, getting past some points I was thankful for the checkpoints I did reach only to have somewhat of a half-smile seeing the points being deducted for it. Something else that I did enjoy is throughout the levels, be on the lookout for some special objects that if you can get them with all the throwing and dodging you will be doing, you may just be rewarded with different types of hands that can be used.
Looking at the graphics, everything is sharp in Virtual Reality from the different worlds to the boss battles. Seeing the amount of detail on the boss named Purple Beard. Seeing the weather all stormy and dark and having the sounds of the water and objects being hurled at you while having the light hit just right, really makes you appreciate the amount of time and work that went into Good Goliath.
There are some things that I wish were added. I love the addition of hands that you can collect and use, but I think it would be pretty cool to add some different unlockables to the mix such as maybe adding some glasses that have your vision being altered in fun and interesting ways. Also, I would love to see some leaderboards to show who is the best of the best in all the lands. It would just add to some fun competition.
Sometimes people will look at that person or group of people and react to what they don’t know just based on what others might have done in the past. But sometimes it is nice to be able to step in the shoes of those that are misjudged just to see what they are going through and maybe that’s what a lot of us could use, a different perspective on things.
Good Goliath is out now on PlayStation VR and is also available on the Oculus Store and on Steam. A review code was provided.
To learn more about Knocktwice Games, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I am going to go practice my aim a little bit more.
