Review: Serious Sam 4 – Planet Badass
Imagine that the developers from Croteam buried a time capsule with the next sequel to Serious Sam ten years ago and remembered about it only now. They dug it up and pulled out a disc with the Serious Sam 4 build from the bottom, and just a couple of days after these archaeological excavations, they released the game. Without any modifications.
Serious Sam 4 is such an old-school shooter in every sense that it’s easy to believe in this story. And no, we are not talking about old-school games like Amid Evil or Ion Fury, which turned retro aesthetics into their style. No. Before us is a real hello from Croatian developers from the late 2000s. Adrenaline music, crowds of enemies, dynamic and brutal action, as well as the most outdated game design and a bunch of technical problems. But first things first.
Serious Sam 4 – Storyline
The events of Serious Sam 4 unfold before the beginning of the third game in the franchise. So, this is kind of a prequel to the prequel, the very first chronologically game in the series, or simply – Before the start of the First Encounter. The game takes place on Earth during the war with Mental, and the main plot revolves around a group of requisitioning alien artifacts, which includes our protagonist Sam Stone. This team is tasked with finding a priest who knows the location of the Holy Grail – an alien artifact that could turn the tide of the war for Earth.
Since the events of the new Serious Sam happened before the plot of all the other games in the series, you should not expect “revelations” from the story itself. Sam, of course, will survive, as will the minor characters who are destined to appear in the third game, as it chronologically continues the four. Therefore, there is no danger for the protagonist, as well as there is no good “twist” in the script of the game. However, developers tried to introduce a couple of twists into the plot, but they did it very badly.
Throughout the series, Sam Stone’s new adventures are perceived as a kind of filler: the game does not bring almost anything new to the series and does not expand its lore in any way. Although the developers could well have told more about Sam himself, and about the war with aliens, and the main villain Mental. But no. For 10 hours of the story campaign, the game will hardly be able to offer anything other than an utterly simple story. Naturally, no one expected a great storyline from the fourth Serious Sam, but the restart of Doom showed how you can now work with narrative in such old-school shooters, and the updated Wolfenstein – tell an interesting story, while retaining a fraction of the trashy original. Anyway, it’s much more interesting to play online casino games here – https://www.casinonic.com/en-CA, than listen to the story of Serious Sam 4…
Serious Sam 4 – Gameplay
Okay. The action in Serious Sam 4 is really brutal, although it does not reach the level of the same Doom or Wolfenstein. The shooter mechanics are great. Nevertheless, the game has several gameplay problems that simply cannot be ignored.
Firstly, the drawbacks that migrated to the fourth part from Serious Sam 3. For example, the need to constantly move around with the sprint button held down, since the pace of the game is tailored specifically for running. Or local finishing moves, which do not bring any benefit, unless you pump an additional skill.
Secondly, the local level design. Large open spaces are a feature of the series. But if in the first parts of Serious Sam we had well-thought-out locations with an interesting design, then in the four – solid flat arenas without any hint of even vertical gameplay. At the same time, some maps are so large that you can spend 10–20 minutes simply getting from one point of interest to another. This significantly breaks the overall dynamics of the game.
Thirdly, the local game design, or rather its beginnings that are present in the game. Perhaps modern shooters (even such as Amid Evil or the new Doom’s) with their verified design and balance have spoiled us too much, but the approach “here are weapons, here are 50 enemies, and do what you want” is perceived today with difficulty. Serious Sam 4 is drenched in it.
To make it easier for us to destroy enemies, the game has various bonuses and fashionable character leveling. The first includes various modules for weapons, unique guns, and equipment. You can get them by completing side quests. This element of the game is somewhat reminiscent of last year’s Gears 5. There, in the same way, you had to get to the point of interest, pick up a certain item, and then kill all the enemies. Only in the shooter from The Coalition, these points were usually located on the way to the main mission and were not stupidly scattered around the map.
Serious Sam 4 – Character Leveling
As for the pumping of Sam Stone, purple artifacts are scattered across the levels that give skill points. For them, the main character can open special abilities. For example, few useful abilities allow you to: ride some monsters, shooting with two hands, accelerated reloading and healing through finishing moves, etc.
All this taken together adds up to a rather strange picture. After all, instead of just making a moderately fun, dynamic, and verified shooter, the developers for some reason decided to stuff the game with absolutely unnecessary elements to somehow smooth out the curves of balance and design, and also show that even if Serious Sam 4 is an old-school action game, it still follows fashion genre trends. And even the unique feature of Croteam, the “Legion” system, which can handle thousands of creatures on one screen, does not work properly in the game. Thousands of fighters and monsters are only a visual effect, while you are still fighting two or three dozen monsters.
The release of Serious Sam 4 on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is scheduled for 2021, but neither the developer Croteam nor the publisher Devolver Digital has named an exact release date.
Summarizing all that has been said, Serious Sam 4 can hardly be called a good game – Croteam released an outright pass-through with a bunch of technical problems and poor optimization. Yes, if you have never played shooters, or you just love to shoot, you can get some pleasure from the new adventures of Sam Stone. But today there are many other, better quality projects on the market that deserve.
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