 I played Highwire Games first ever title, Golem, a total of three times before completing its five to six hour story. If I were to base this review on my first two play sessions, this would have been a much more negative review. So what was it about my third session that saved Golem for me? Well the developers at Highwire were pretty quick to release a patch that fundamentally improved the game. You see, during those first two play sessions, Golem employed a movement system that required you to lean forward in order to move forward. This completely hindered your ability to do even the most basic functions that you will have come to expect from virtual reality, namely looking around at your amazing surroundings while walking at the same time. It made what should have been the simple act of walking around an absolute headache and it honestly put me off playing the game. I wasn't the only one with this complaint and saw Highwire Games, a studio that boasts talented developers who had the likes of Halo and Infamous on the resume, said about releasing patch 1.02 which addressed my main problem with the game and boy am I glad they did because that patch unearthed one of the best games on the PS viewer headsets. Golem is a story driven first person adventure game that borrows some elements you may expect to find in a Soulsborne title. You play as Twine, a young girl who has become bedridden thanks to tragedy. Not long after, she discovers that she can possess inanimate objects, cue the titular Golem. Twine's Golem feels like a large beast. Its movement is slow and deliberate, it wields giant, detailed weapons in its enormous hands and it delivers heavy blows with each strike. You'll be piloting your Golem in a derelict and ancient city and as you try to reach its center, you'll find plenty of obstacles in your path, namely locked doors and other Golems who just so happen to be carrying the key to these doors. There's a story that drives Twine onwards towards her goal. With impressive character animation and fine voice acting, but while I was always interested in seeing where this tale was going, it felt just serviceable. Just as a means of getting me to my next fight with an enemy Golem, for that is where the true joy of Golem is found. Throughout the city, you'll encounter these guys and Highwire did a great job of making many of them feel distinct from one another. You'll remember where the weak Golem is with that basic sword, you'll work up the courage to take on that giant Golem with the interest in blue gemstone in its chest and you'll get your ass kicked by the Golem wielding the cool looking dark sword. The reason you'll remember these guys is because every time you die, you get sent back to your workshop and in this workshop, you'll equip your next Golem with three Isems, a weapon, a gemstone and a mask. These three resources are fine eyes, so die too much and you'll run out and have to rely on a very basic Golem. Once you've selected your load house, you'll start at the entrance to the city, with all enemies having respawned in once again. This sounds very punishing but thanks to many shortcuts that the player can open up to create speedier paths throughout the city, it's not as bad as it may sound. There's a nice variety of weapons, some at range, others power, the gemstones have unique effects, some let you regenerate a little bit of health for example, others increase your life or let you absorb the life of fallen enemies. Finally, the masks are the keys to the various locked doors around the city. Some doors will only unlock if you're wearing the correct mask, however, seen as the only way to equip a new mask is to destroy your current Golem and head back to the workshop, therefore respawning all the enemies, I can't help but wish we could equip masks on the fly. That's not to say fighting enemies is a chore though, as I've said earlier the fights with enemy Golems are where this game shines. Golem is unique in that you'll be using just one move controller for combat, even if you decide to combine it with a dualshock 4 or nav controller for locomotion, which I do recommend. The move controller is the only one used in combat and the combat here is great. You'll soon learn that wildly swinging your sword at an enemy Golem will get you nowhere. Instead, you'll need to successfully block their incoming attacks by reading their startup animations, blocking their attacks by holding your weapon at the correct defensive position and then after doing this correctly, you'll briefly expose their weak points which you can attack to cause some actual damage. The further you progress, the more enemy Golems will surprise you with new attacks or feints or counter attacks, so you'll need to be on your toes to survive these duels. And with the punishment for failure being restarting your run, these encounters are genuinely thrilling, especially when legendary composer Marty O'Donnell's cinematic score is up in the tension, although I will say I wish there was an option to turn that music down just a little bit. There were occasions where I felt like I blocked an attack and it hit me regardless, but those moments were very rare and I may very well have not blocked as well as I thought I did. Overall, the tracking worked great and with Golem designed exclusively for PSVR, Highwire developed it specifically with sitting down in mind, which generally leads to less tracking issues. I do have some issues with Golem. I wish walking movement was faster. I wish we could swap masks on the fly as I've discussed already. I wish the small dog segments were more interesting. I wish small bits of debris that looked like I should be able to walk over them didn't stop my giant Golem dead in its tracks. And I wish the random collectibles in the game actually had some purpose other than a trophy unlocked. But overall, these issues are mostly forgettable. Golem is $39.99, so it's on the higher end of the scale for the cost of a virtual reality game, but I believe the exhilarating combat here is worth the price of admission as long as you're playing on version 1.02 or later. That's it for this Golem review, thank you for watching and thank you to my Patreon supporters whose names are on screen now. Their generosity is what has helped me make this channel a better place to visit and let me also give a shout out to the Patreons on the soaking wet pumpkin tier for their exceptional generosity. Pete Hawkins, Chrome, Tradition, Columbus Thomas III, thank you very very much for your support. If you'd like to see your name at the end of my videos as a thank you for helping me out then my Patreon link will be in the description below. Also if you enjoy the music I use on my videos then head on over to Decepticon.com and check out his albums, screens and dreams. That says, thank you very much for watching, I'll see you in the next one, bye for now.