Lava Golem

**Lava Golem** is the third boss encountered in I Hate Running Backwards. The player must face it at the end of the Molty Python environment.

## In-game description

*He may be hot and fiery from the outside, but his heart is as cold as ice and his ruthless attacks will have you running around for dear life. Throwing chunks of lava constantly you always have to be on the move. Freezing him before shooting will deal way more damage than just shooting him. And whatever you do, DO NOT use the Flammenwerfer on him! It will only heal him prolonging the battle even more.*

## Tactics

The battle against Lava Golem will be a test of the player's movement skills, as dodging its projectiles is almost certainly a very tough challenge for every newcomer to the game.

   While statistically speaking, Lava Golem is the weakest of all the bosses, he actually has a very high resistance against all forms of damage. This resistance can be negated by freezing Lava Golem. This can be done in two ways: one is to use the ice-coloured cannons with a frost icon above them, which frequently appear during the boss. Wait for the cannon to line up with Lava Golem, then use the hammer attack next to it. The other option is to use the frost-based special weapons: namely the Frost Grenade, Frost Rifle and Re-Frigerator. Enough damage from these weapons will also put the Lava Golem in its "frozen" state. Once in that state, Lava Golem will lose all his resistances and take full damage from all sources - with the exception of the Flammenwerfer!, which will heal the Lava Golem in all scenarios.

The Lava Golem, like the Scrapjack, is a single-phase boss enemy. Lava Golem randomly cycles between three different attacks. The first is **Fire Boulder Throw**, where Lava Golem will throw a sequence of fire balls at the player. When these balls land, they leave a small "burning" radius behind which will damage the player if they step into it. Its second attack is **Firewall**. Here Lava Golem summons four fire balls to be spawned in the middle of the screen, the spawn points of which are denoted by orange circles. They will fly in a straight line, generally towards where the player is standing. All of the fire ball projectiles cannot be deflected or destroyed with a hammer attack. Lava Golem's last attack is **Molten Rocks**, where it summons several molten rocks which will slowly roll from the top of the screen towards the bottom. Unlike the other lava projectiles, these can be destroyed using a melee attack, but not deflected.

The best strategy against the Lava Golem is to constantly stay on the move and in the opposite direction of where it is aiming. This way it will become very hard for Lava Golem to effectively land his hits. Never attack Lava Golem during his standard state, as this is generally considered a massive waste of ammo. Wait until there is an opportunity to set him towards the frozen state, move in front of it and then blast away both primary and special weapons at once to maximize the damage dealt.

## Trivia

* Lava Golems appeared prominently in both of the classic Serious Sam games, being introduced into the series as a boss in the Alley of the Sphinxes level.