In the household of huge muscled nags who shoot at all the things that strikes and throw punchlines galore, Duke Nukem has lengthy held the dragee excessive in Serious Sam. But for the reason that launch of Duke Nukem Forever in 2011, and the silence of the King who ensued, we will contemplate that Sam Stone has taken the lead once more. Nine years in the past, Serious Sam three BFE obtained a very good reception from the general public and critics. Unfortunately, this fourth episode seems to be a little bit extra disappointing. But it isn’t as catastrophic as some counsel …
Just just like the participant who should decimate waves of enemies with out being overwhelmed, the Serious Sam storyline strikes backwards. Thus, the story of this fourth episode predates that of the third, which itself served as a prequel to the primary two. In reality, all this doesn’t actually matter, for the reason that level is kind of at all times the identical: the alien entity Tah-Um (higher recognized underneath the identify of Mental) sends hordes of aliens to invade the earth, and our hero Sam Stone is chargeable for passing them to the sulphate. Note all the identical that this time, Sam goes looking for the Holy Grail, like a knight of Camelot. Or quite Kaamelott given his lack of seriousness. This quest has the great style of creating him go to Italy, the south of France (Carcassonne to be exact) and even Siberia for a short time. These units are a nice change from Egypt, which was beginning to be a little bit too systematic within the collection. One of the brand new options of the game considerations the presence in sure missions of companions managed by the AI. There are some well-known faces (Hellfire and Rodriguez already seen within the cutscenes of Serious Sam three BFE) but additionally new ones, foremost amongst that are Father Mikhail the Russian priest, Carter the conspirator, and Kenny the blue of the gang.
One of the successes of the game is named “Its place is in a museum”, and we may very well be tempted to make this criticism to Serious Sam, who hardly modifications his recipe. But it will be mistaken to react like this as a result of, in actuality, this inconceivable combination between fast-FPS and shoot’em up nonetheless works as properly.
During the gameplay phases, their usefulness is important since they really kill a few of the monsters that tumble on the map. And their dialogues are the event for extra humor, the not so severe Sam not being the one one to ship the valve and the punchline. Obviously, we stay in a intentionally low brow and caricature register. But it will be as inappropriate to complain about it as to bemoan Duke Nukem’s sexism. Just as it will be silly accountable the script for its lightness or its absurdity. It’s all a part of Serious Sam’s DNA, and it will quite be the absence of those traits that will have been worrying. And we will apply kind of the identical reasoning for the gameplay, which stays an identical to what the collection has at all times proposed: massive arenas, enemies in waves and within the lots of, and an entire arsenal to beat them. It doesn’t take extra to have enjoyable, even when the builders have tried an enchancment with their “Legion” system, which might concurrently show a number of thousand (and even tens of hundreds?) Of fighters concurrently. The game offers us a style of it within the very first mission, earlier than utterly letting go within the final. Between the 2, we stay on portions of traditional enemies for a Serious Sam.
SAM USE OR HAVE FUN?
In order to range the pleasures, the marketing campaign additionally presents us a passage on a bike, a sequence aboard a mix harvester (think about the bloody cross between a Farming Simulator and a game of zombies …) and some moments on the controls of a big mech. Finally, all the things is relative, since dealing with the ultimate boss, this big robotic in the end seems tiny. Here once more, the custom of giant bosses has been adopted to the letter. In different phrases: any Serious Sam fan will discover his marks and one thing to get pleasure from. The bestiary can also be extra assorted than regular since along with the traditional howler suicide bombers and different Gnaars, we’re additionally entitled to vampires, drones, pyromaniac troopers, giants in medieval armor and even species. explosive boomers (thanks Left 4 Dead). We take ! The arsenal has additionally been revised upwards, however a few of the new weapons in the end show to be fairly redundant. On the opposite hand, some devices are significantly attention-grabbing, just like the black gap that absorbs enemies, the devastating mini-nuke, or the drive discipline that slows down time. Most of the time, you get these devices by finishing non-compulsory targets, one other new characteristic of this episode. These are fairly merely branches within the ranges that result in non-compulsory arenas, however we might be mistaken to disregard.
Other small novelties much less convincing, even utterly dispensable, are additionally within the game. A mini-talent tree principally lets you select between two specializations (improved melee or double wielding of weapons), and you will discover within the settings a number of ill-crafted radios and audiologs, since you need to keep nonetheless doing nothing for a very long time. too lengthy seconds if you wish to take heed to the printed messages. Suddenly, we skip them fortunately. But the true faults of Serious Sam 4 (as a result of there are some!) Are extra to be discovered within the technical aspect. For starters, the graphics do not fairly measure as much as a 2020 title. If this facet is unlucky, it’s nonetheless simply forgivable. On the one hand the game is developed by a small workforce, and alternatively you hardly have time to concentrate on modeling and textures whenever you’re busy “circle-strapping” in the course of a number of hundred dots. enemies. It is subsequently particularly in the course of the cutscenes and the quieter phases that we understand the dated character of the graphics, even when some landscapes nonetheless handle to have their small impact.
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The lack of optimization is already extra annoying, the game tending to row on common configs if we push the graphic particulars a little bit an excessive amount of. It additionally imposes on us some impromptu slowdowns (when sure scripts are triggered for instance), in addition to a small assortment of fairly full bugs. Expect to face a number of of those points: flashing backgrounds, script that does not set off on the proper time, tough sound combine, poorly timed subtitles, or sluggish loading occasions. Some of its worries might be mitigated, if not completely averted, by altering the show mode of the game which, on PC at the least, offers us the selection between DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and Vulkan. So do not hesitate to vary the setting in case you have too many graphics issues. For our half, it’s the DirectX 11 mode that allowed us to move between probably the most drops!
