12/28/2023 0 Comments Serious sam 2 reviews![]() ![]() To be fair to Serious Sam 4, there is a real thrill to be experienced in the battles when that old, familiar gameplay loop really clicks. For better or worse, Serious Sam 4 is stuck in the past – largely re-playing the series’ greatest hits, albeit in a new European setting and with a few extra bells and whistles. In the years since the last game was released, some developers have brought older series into the present – as with Shadow Warrior and Doom – and others have used new techniques to explore the gameplay of yesteryear, as with Dusk and Amid Evil. Throughout these battles, and while exploring the copy-pasted level geometry between them, there is a sense of tiredness about Serious Sam 4. Back then, the jokes would sometimes land but more often wouldn’t. ![]() Back then, it was exhilarating to move deftly around an arena and destroy hundreds of enemies, but it eventually became exhausting. With this comes the return of the usual strengths and weaknesses the series has had since 2001. With these gestures to change being so minor, familiarity and repetition prevail in Serious Sam 4. The skill tree feels like a half-hearted concession to modernity, with some of the abilities being so minor as to be almost redundant. The ability to unlock dual-wielding can make circle-strafing bosses and desperately fending off an army of screaming kamikaze bombers that bit more efficient. New enemy variants include melee-focused former humans with blades on their hands, and imposing zealots who wield sledgehammers and are invulnerable to frontal attack except from explosives. Driveable vehicles make a return after their absence since Serious Sam 2, and there’s a small skill-tree accessible when Sam huffs a purple alien gas. At times, Serious Sam 4 can feel as if it was developed almost back-to-back with the last game, and for some reason shelved for years. The uncanny emptiness of the open levels returns, the streets of Rome and Carcassonne merely an arena for carnage which rarely rewards exploration. In addition to the familiarity of the weapons and enemies, there is the same sense of a clash between the fairly realistic settings and the outlandish monsters. Despite the shift to European settings, the extent of the similarity to BFE is striking. Expect to spend a lot of time running backwards, doing the familiar coach gun dance with Kleer skeletons, and pumping rockets into four-armed magic lizards perched on ancient buildings.Ĭroteam’s reluctance to switch up the formula becomes apparent very early on. While exploring the environments in Italy, France and Russia, the player will inevitably trigger a series of large-scale fights in which familiar weapons and enemies return. Established fans of the series will appreciate the return of the familiar gameplay loop this entails. While it’s hard to see the repetitious and dated gameplay winning many new converts, fans of the series are likely to be satisfied with Sam’s return.Ī prequel to Serious Sam 3: BFE (which was itself a prequel to the other games in the series), this new entry sees Sam and the beleaguered Earth Defense Force fighting an alien invasion of Europe. While developers Croteam have sometimes explored changes in tone and art style between games, they have never significantly altered the gameplay formula and this pattern continues with Serious Sam 4. For other series, such a long gap might bring with it expectations of a major overhaul to gameplay – or even some kind of reboot. Serious Sam 4, long-delayed, follows a full nine years after the previous entry. Nevertheless, the wait between main games in the series has been long. As the saying goes, time flies when you’re mowing down Sirian were-bulls with a multi-barrelled laser cannon. The Serious Sam series is now a venerable part of first-person shooter history, having been with us for almost two decades – the original game was released way back in March 2001.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |