Developer: Croteam
Publisher: Devolver Digital
RRP: £10.99 (Steam)
Released: 24th November 2009
Available on: Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 8 hours
You play as Sam ‘Serious’ Stone who has been sent back in time to…. lets be honest, no one is playing Serious Sam for the story because it’s utter nonsense. It’s a means to an end so that we the players get to kill lots of things with big guns in interesting environments.
Now, before I go on to talk about the game I feel I need to give a little bit of a history lesson. In case you weren’t aware this game is in fact a remake, built from the ground up using the latest (at the time) engine that Croteam had created. The original game was released in 2001 and was a bit of a surprise for most of game buying public, and this was mostly for two reasons. The first was that this game had lots and lots of enemies that would appear at once and that some of them would be huge! But in my opinion is was the second surprise that really reasonable for this game becoming so popular at the time. It was only £20, this was completely unheard of, a brand new game that looked this polished (for the time) and it was only £20? Of course it sold well.
So lets get back to the game itself rather than the situation surrounding it. This game is a basic FPS run and gun, sure it has some very simple puzzles but at its core this game is about running backwards and shooting all the enemies. Running backwards? That’s right, this game loves to throw hordes and hordes of enemies at you and you’ll find you’ll need to run backwards while shooting the enemy just to survive. This game really is a product of its time though, and it shows especially when it comes to enemy placement. Why was there a guy standing in that corner, because the developers wanted you to get hit with a surprise shot, that’s why. There isn’t a narrative reason. On top of that enemies often get teleported in just to really mess with your day.
Some of the levels this game has to offer though are massive, filled with secrets, goodies and lots of enemies that are eager to put all your blood on the outside.
Graphically speaking the game looks quite pretty (for 2009) although I did find that, at least on my system, sometimes a texture or two would flicker. All the same its still all quite impressive.
It’s actually quite interesting to think that the studio would later go on to produce The Talos Principle and in a strange way I can really see why.
This games pretty good, but honestly I can’t recommend it with that price tag, its just a little too steep especially when you consider you can get the most recent Doom (the 2016 one) game for only £4 more.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Serious Sam 3
Shadow Warrior
Painkiller
