Serious Sam - The Random Encounter

I wasn't expecting much from Serious Sam - The Random Encounter but I gave it a try anyway. Another entry from the indie licenses, this NES era style turn based action game looks and feels like it could have actually been made in the late 80's; while that is exactly what they were going for, I don't think it was worth the effort.

The beauty of Serious Sam is the balls out action, nonstop shooting, punctuated by the quiet moments (at least when you're being shot at you expect to die at any moment). This game tries to take the humor and meld it with a quiet strategy which actually doesn't work badly, it just doesn't belong in the Serious Sam franchise.

Maybe if the pixels were blockier...

You walk through a world map with random encounters, starting an encounter gives you the combat menus which are used to program your responses with, and every 5 seconds you get the option to change your attack, There are lots of items and guns, but the soul of the game has been torn out and left gasping for air in someone's IDE during some long forgotten compile. Serious Sam is about serious firepower and serious action, this game is about serious menu selections.

4/10 for this member of the franchise, the game is well made and is decently priced, it's just not what I'm looking for in a game experience.