Lava Golem

SS1
SSHD
SS:DD
SS:TRE small
SS:TRE big
SSBB small
SSBD medium
SSBD large
IHRB

Lava Golem

General information

Type

Magical creature

Affiliation

Mental's Horde

Individual information

Health

50 (SSBD small variant)
100 (small variant and SSBD medium variant)
150 (SSBD large variant)
800 {medium)
10,000 (large variant)

Attacks / weapons

Fireball (7-20, depending on size)
Jump (SS:DD)
Melee (10-20)
Melee shock wave (0-10)

Size

10 to 100 ft (3 to 30 m) standing

Game information

Point value

500 (small variant)
2500 (medium variant)
50,000 (large variant)

Experience

5 (SSBD small variant)
15 (SSBD medium variant)
50 (SSBD Easy, large variant)
125 (SSBD large variant)
150 (SSBD Hard, large variant)
400 (SSBD Serious, large variant)

Designed by

Admir Elezović (all games except for SS:DD, SS:TRE, SS:DD:XXL, SSBD & IHRB)

The Lava Golem is an enemy that appears in the Serious Sam series. It appears as a boss in Serious Sam: The First Encounter, and is the boss of the third stage in I Hate Running Backwards.

Overview

Lava Golems are piles of lava that have been magically brought to life. While the first Lava Golem that appears in The First Encounter is a guardian summoned by the collected elements, the rest of the Golems in Serious Sam 1 appear to be made by Mental himself, as they spawn with Mental-allied enemies.

In Serious Sam's Bogus Detour, they were created by Mordekai the Summoner to live on the volcanic planet of Struna. Mental transported the Golems to Earth during his invasion to make them as part of his forces. As they could not adapt to Earth's environment, Mental-Altani pumped up magma from the Earth's crust so they could thrive and adapt to the surrounding area.

In Serious Sam: Double D and Serious Sam: Double D: XXL, the Lava Golem appears as a large creature made out of lava rock that bounces on a pogo stick.

Occurrence

Lava Golems usually serve the role of supporting the main attacking force with their fireballs. They often appear few at a time, despite their size. In the The First Encounter, the first Lava Golem encountered is a boss in Alley of the Sphinxes (Metropolis in Serious Sam: Xbox). Subsequent Lava Golems appear mainly in Karnak.

In the Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Lava Golems are more common, starting to appear from the first level on. The large Lava Golem appears only on co-op in The Grand Cathedral.

In Serious Sam's Bogus Detour, Lava Golems first appear in Trouble in Troy, where they come out of lakes of lava. This is the only time they appear.

In Serious Sam 4, Lava Golems are present only in Gates of Hell as a secret. A miniature Golem is present by the lava lake and if shot, will trigger the spawn of a big Golem. The Golem looks and behaves exactly like in Serious Sam HD, and when killed, will spawn four smaller Golems.

Behavior and skills

As Lava Golems are made out of low temperature magma, they use the magic powers contained in them to summon fireballs and similar projectiles to throw at enemies. Power and resistance of any particular Golem depends on its size and the amount of contained magic force. When a large or medium Golem dies, it may spawn several smaller ones in the process which continue their lives independent of their originator. Each size of Golem has different health, damage dealt and point value.

In Serious Sam 1, the Lava Golem has two attacks: throwing chunks of lava and pounding the ground when the player gets close to it. Medium and large Lava Golems will attempt to predict where the player is going and will try to throw a lava ball to what direction it perceives the player is going.

In Serious Sam: Double D, the Golem's only “attack” is to jump into the air and try to land on the player with its pogo stick. Every time the Golem jumps, it will leave a small pile of lava rocks from where it jumped from. These rocks do little damage if someone walks over them. When killed, it will leave a small pile of lava rocks.

In Serious Sam's Bogus Detour, Lava Golems will throw fireballs at the player in rapid succession. These fireballs can set the player on fire for a couple of seconds, increasing the player's movement speed but also draining their health at the same time. Unlike Golems from the previous games, they can regenerate whilst in lava.

Tactics

Serious Sam 1

In general, small Golems are the least threatening of the Golems. Their attacks do little damage and they are the easier out of all Golems to kill. They should be medium-low priority targets.
For logical reasons, the XOP Flamethrower should not used be against a Lava Golem.
Small Golems can easily be dispatched with the M1A2 Thompson. It takes about 10 bullets to kill one. The Double Barrel Coach Gun is an alternative to the Tommy gun but only effective at short range.
Medium Golems are much more dangerous than their small counterparts. Their lava balls do much more damage and are harder to avoid because of their size. In addition, their greatly increased health makes them much harder to kill.
If the medium Golem spawns with other enemies, the medium Golem should be medium-high priority targets because the need to change moving direction can lead the player to other enemies. There are still more immediate threats like Arachnoids.
Medium Golems can be significantly harmed by a charged up cannonball so it would be so wounded that a few bullets will finish it off. A quick follow-up shot with the XPML21 Rocket Launcher or MK III Grenade Launcher can finish it off.
Despite their size, large Golems are not significantly more dangerous than their medium counterparts. Their lava balls are usually as easy to dodge as a medium's.
Large Golems can be wounded with either rockets, grenades or charged up cannonballs. However, no matter what weapon is chosen, it will require a lot of ammo for the chosen weapon to kill it because of how much health it has. Thankfully, when the large Golem appears, a health bar will appear, letting the player know how much damage has been dealt to the Golem.
The XM214-A Minigun allows the player to destroy the rocks thrown by medium or large Lava Golems, while at the same damaging the Golems.
While Lava Golems are slow, it's not advised to approach them too closely. Their melee attacks do a lot of damage and are difficult to avoid.

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour

The SBC Cannon can kill a large Golem in one hit, as well as any additional smaller Golems that spawn after the large Golem's death. As the cannonballs continue to travel after hitting a Golem, it can be used against multiple Golems if they are lined up together.
As they have less health than their Serious Sam 1 counterparts, the AS-24 Devastator, Thompson or Lasercannon are great weapons to use against Golems, regardless of their size.
Try to lure Golems onto land and away from the lava where they spawn, as they can regenerate when in lava.
If engaging Golems when being surrounded by enemies, the Golems should be taken out first before finishing off any weaker enemies.

Behind the scenes

Originally, there were supposed to be other enemies made out of inanimate materials and were called Elementals. They were to reside on a specific planet, such as the Water Elemental being on the Water Planet, that would be visited after the player completed the Egypt section of Serious Sam 1. However, the planets and most of the Elementals were cut before the game was released. The only Elemental that survived was the Lava Golem; the others (Ice Elemental, Water Elemental, Air Elemental and Stone Elemental) were cut.
As it has been found out, the Lava Golem was originally supposed to possess four abilities rather than three; they were supposed to have the power to project small, medium, to large-sized fireballs, but this was dumped for an unknown reason. Like two of the Elementals that have been fought in the prototype version, namely the Ice Elemental and Stone Elemental, they were able to throw 3 molten rocks in a scatter pattern, but this was also scrapped. The old version of the rock thrown by the Lava Golem can be found in the models/Elementals folder.

Related achievements

Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter

File:Huge Pile of Lava SSVRTFE.jpg

Huge Pile of Lava

Defeat the Lava Golem boss.

Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter

File:Nice Try SSVRTSE.jpg

Nice Try

Use the Flamethrower on a Lava Golem.

Serious Sam Fusion

File:Huge Pile of Lava.jpg

Huge Pile of Lava

Defeat the Lava Golem boss on Alley of the Sphinxes.

File:Nice Try.jpg

Nice Try

Use the Flamethrower on a Lava Golem.

I Hate Running Backwards

Golemslayer	20

Kill the Lava golem

Trivia

In The Second Encounter, the Golems have fire on their body.
Despite being immune to fire and lava, Golems will sometimes take damage from lava and die subsequently, such as in Land of the Damned in Serious Sam HD.