Serious Sam 3 BFE

After the triumph of playing Serious Sam 2 I was looking forward to Serious Sam 3, although I may have been a little too amped up by 2. To be clear, this is not a bad game by any means, but it does fall a bit short of the mark set by the previous title.

It's a good looking and well built game, the aliens are well designed, and the weapons are nicely built and executed. The problem I had is that it comes too close to being another Call of Duty clone during the first 3 levels when grabbing the interest of the player is so important; if I had no Serious Sam history, I don't know if I would have bothered playing through them.

Surely a double barrelled shotgun is the best choice for suicide bombers.

When the game hits its stride, it does it very, very well; at that point the game has a great flow to it and the weapons meld into your form flawlessly. Once you have a few guns at your disposal the baddies start swarming and suddenly your back in that Serious Sam world where ammo flows and aliens die in heaps and piles, all the fun and frustration are there at your fingertips. I should also note that if your new to Serious Sam, frustration comes with the territory, be prepared to repeat swarm fights until you get it right, this game gives you everything you need to win, but that doesn't mean they make it easy.

I'm going to give this one 7/10  it's a good game but, at full price, it's not a cheap title, and it does lose marks for those first 3 levels. I think it boils down to this: If you're going to put a word like "serious" in your title, you can't expect people to take you serious, irony is the goal here, otherwise you should call yourself "Dude Who Shoots Aliens in Desert Settings with Bigger, and Bigger Guns!" which, to be fair, also sounds like an amazing game I would pick up in a heartbeat.

Serious Sam 2

After the last 2 days I'm glad to get back into the FPS realm, a realm that Serious Sam 2 opened the door to, then blew it off the hinges and set the rubble on fire. Serious Sam 2 is some serious fun. It took the best of it's progenitor and gave the extra needed for a real win.

The Serious Sam is what Doom hoped to become and the vision Borderlands was spawned from. This game is nothing but out and out, full on, shooting everything that moves; there is no reality present to detract from it's vision, bigger and badder guns against bigger and badder targets, wave after wave of bad guys to mow down.

Man with rocket launcher vs cruise missile equipped Robo-sharks, just as nature intended.

The ammo is almost limitless, you just need to get through each wave with what you have in order to get replenished, same as health and armor: survive and you'll get more. In a different context the bad guys could be terrifying, but they balance perfectly with the game mood; a mood set by pop culture references and 4rth Wall shattering fun (although if you've never seen The Warriors, "Kleers, Come Out to Play" may not make much sense).

The graphics are dated, the game was released in 2005, as are some of the mechanics, but it is enough fun to keep from getting dropped through the genre cracks. I don't know when, or if, I'll play it again, but the single play I got out of it gave me over 20 hours of enjoyment and, even though I was unable to defeat the final boss (Fuck you Mental Institute), I'm giving this full 10/10 rating.

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.

Serious Sam Double D XXL

After watching the trailer for Serious Sam Double D XXL (make sure you turn on the sound for that one) I was hoping for a lot of fun from this game, however I was left somewhat wanting. This isn't necessarily a bad game, I think it would be great on a console, but the PC port is not great.

Leading up to the release of the newest Serious Sam title a few indie licenses were handed out, this was one of the entries. You can tell a lot of effort was put into this game and, again, on a different platform it may come across better, but controlling the action with a keyboard and mouse really didn't pan out well.

Although it's not without its charms...

I'm also not a fan of the  platforming aspect, it's been a number of years since I've played a 2D sidescroller, and even more since I enjoyed one. The guns and firepower are great and the enemies are well crafted and balanced, in accordance to Serious Sam canon, but Sam just didn't respond well enough to make things a lot of fun.

5/10 for this one as I'm really on the fence, it looks great, and the gun stacker system is almost worth the price of admission alone, but the 2D action and controls leave me wanting. If you enjoy sidescrollers I think you can do worse than this one, otherwise just scroll on past this title.

Serious Sam

Serious Sam is Serious Fun! How do you argue with the formula [Guns - (bad guys/ammo)] x Humour? No matter how you spin that bottle it always lands on good times. There are actually 2 titles in the original run of the game, The First Encounter and The Second Encounter, but they're little more than episodes 1 and 2 of the same game, and, as such, I consider them one. I also found I had the HD editions of both games in my library but Serious Sam Classics: Revolutions takes both titles, in HD, and adds a little extra in one game, so that's the one I played the most of.

Sam is all about saving the world, and he's Serious about it; that's all you need to know about him and his universe. Guns are plentiful and ammo piles on top of more ammo; I couldn't find a shortage of health packs or armour either. Dive in and mow down some of the more unique baddies ever created and have a good time. Seriously though, if I ever encountered ANY of things in real life my soul would have a stroke, rocket launcher or not.

AW YEAH!

The original release was in 2001, so game is dated. I'm not used to looking for triggers to open doors anymore, and searching for health and armour has not been "cool" for a long time, but I actually miss that aspect in gaming; health regeneration is a neat concept, but rarely used properly. I would also say that this game stands up much better than many games I've played from that same time, even without the HD update. Oh yeah, there is multiplayer as well, which might be fun, but I don't think anybody gives a crap about that.

I'm going 9/10, I enjoyed every moment played and if you only buy Revolutions the price is decent (and to be blunt Revolutions is the only one you need to buy). My only reservation is the replay value, having played through I don't think I'll ever bother again. Let me just leave you with the words of Sam "Serious" Stone: "Give a man a bullet and he'll ask for a gun; give a man a gun, and he'll give bullets away for free!"