Serious Sam 4 Review – The Fourth Encounter

In Serious Sam 4, the long-running FPS collection might have lastly discovered a workable identification. Through every entry, developer Croteam has held onto the core gameplay loop that outlined Sam’s preliminary jaunt throughout Egypt. You will all the time back-pedal, you’ll all the time circle-strafe, and you’ll all the time battle dozens of Sam’s memorable cadre of alien enemies without delay. But, at occasions, that loop has been obscured by among the unusual choices Croteam has made with the collection. It was by no means damaged, however every recreation finds the developer making an attempt to repair it.Enter Serious Sam 4, one more reinvention that appears to attract from each interval of the collection’ lengthy life. As in Serious Sam 3, the graphics are lifelike (although a little bit stiff). As in Serious Sam 2, there’s vehicular fight and humor to spare (and a shocking portion of the jokes land). And, as in First and Second Encounter, the gameplay is razor-sharp and front-and-center. It’s been 9 years because the final mainline entry, and in that point we have witnessed the revival of circle-strafing shooters because of video games each massive (Doom) and small (Dusk). But, on this newly crowded panorama, Serious Sam 4 has a secret weapon. Croteam is just prepared to throw a ridiculous variety of enemies at you always and it has the tech to tug it off.In this outing, which features as a prequel to The First Encounter, Sam and a small group of resistance fighters are trying to push again the villainous Mental’s assault on Earth. The alien horde has already gained, however the resistance hopes to attain a strategic benefit by monitoring down the Holy Grail, which is definitely an alien artifact hidden someplace among the many artwork and structure of an impressively unspoiled Italy.As Sam embarks on this quest, he faces down a well-recognized horde of enemies with a well-recognized arsenal of weapons. If you have performed Serious Sam earlier than, you may acknowledge most of them. There’s the Sirian Werebull, a fleshy creature with horns that prices headlong at you, until you may take it out with a number of well-timed blasts out of your double shotgun. The Beheaded Kamikaze, which boasts a pair of bombs instead of palms and a scream you may hear from a mile away, can also be again, and can drive you to choose it off earlier than it will get shut sufficient to blow up. It will also be led into a bigger crowd of enemies earlier than you shoot, setting off a powder keg of blood and gibs. One of my private favorites, the Reptiloid, usually posts up on a tower, then hurls acid inexperienced homing missiles that can observe you till they discover their goal, or till you shoot them out of the air.It’s a formidable roster composed of among the most memorable and well-designed enemies in gaming. The Serious Sam model–drop a ton of enemies in an enviornment and dare you to return out on top–only works as a result of every enemy is straightforward to acknowledge and, because of this, internalize and bear in mind deal with. Say you hear the Beheaded Kamikaze’s signature scream and swap to your assault rifle to deal with the dozen the sport throws at you earlier than they get shut sufficient to blow up. Once they’re dispatched, you hear the bottom rumble beneath the toes of the Sirian Werebull and pull out the rocket launcher to complete the herd off with a string of one-hit kills. But then a pair of Reptiloids seems on far off towers, so you turn to the sniper rifle to choose them, and their homing projectiles, off from a distance. All of this occurs within the area of some seconds and the sport hardly ever does you the favor of sending every group individually. But the enemies are outlined by distinctive designs, behaviors, and sometimes audio cues, so that you’re hardly ever caught without warning.As Sam manages these crowds, the chiseled hero attracts on the identical spectacular arsenal he is wielded because the starting (and some new instruments, as nicely). The rocket launcher returns, now with an improve that lets you lock on to a number of enemies. The minigun is crucial for crowd management, ripping by dozens of aliens in a matter of seconds. And, my favourite, the transportable cannon, is again, too, permitting Sam to launch large cannonballs into enemies, destroying even the meanest minotaurs in a number of hits. Each gun has its use, and I loved the method of determining which gun labored finest in opposition to which enemy. You also can increase your roster of instruments by finishing facet quests–a new addition in Serious Sam 4. Sometimes these diversions grant you a weapon mod, like that rocket launcher improve. Other occasions, it’d grant you a gadget, which may run the gamut from well being kits to transportable black holes or a bomb that slows down time for everybody however Sam. These devices might help flip the tide in battle, however you discover them so hardly ever that you might want to be picky with how you employ them. As a end result, they do not really feel like a serious addition; extra like an attention-grabbing contact.My largest gripe with the sport is that it hardly ever offers you area and time to marvel at a weapon’s energy. As quickly as you get the cannon, you may be launched right into a battle that calls for you employ it in opposition to each enemy simply to maintain up. In this fashion, the sport usually robs you of any actual feeling of energy. Sure, you are obliterating Reptiloids in a single hit, which is cool. But the sport overcompensates by throwing a dozen Reptiloids at you without delay. Instead of offering a chance to understand the cannon’s one-shot one-kill energy, Serious Sam 4 skips straight to creating you are feeling such as you’re barely scraping by, cannon however. You’re always in your again foot, which may make the (in any other case wonderful) fight start to really feel a little bit repetitive. I really like the stress of Serious Sam 4’s fights, racing round hordes of enemies, making an attempt to choose the appropriate weapon to purchase myself a second’s peace. But the sport hardly ever offers that pressure a launch valve, and because of this, it may be exhausting to play.The Bull Monster in Serious Sam 4In powerful fights, it helps that, at the very least among the time, Sam has a group he can depend on. In this entry, you are joined by a squad of troopers who might help take enemies down in battle. Given how frenzied late-game battles are, I used to be all the time grateful to have any assist I might get. Each member of the squad suits fairly neatly into well-known archetypes: the priest who’s useful with a shotgun; the paranoid conspiracy theorist; the feminine soldier who can kick simply as a lot ass because the boys; the brand new recruit who cannot fairly maintain his personal in battle but. These are dependable inventory characters, and I largely loved watching the group banter. A working joke has every of the squadmates making an attempt to proffer the very best one-liner after dispatching baddies. These moments made me chuckle out loud on a number of events and, extra surprisingly, the story really manages to land a heartfelt beat or two alongside the way in which.Serious Sam 4’s reliance on tropes is not all the time innocent, although. There are two males from marginalized backgrounds on Sam’s squad, and each fall fairly neatly into racial stereotypes. Rodriguez, a Mexican-American soldier, peppers his speech with phrases like “cajones,” “culo” and “pendejo.” This trope, which sees Latinx characters dropping Spanish phrases into in any other case English sentences, is frequent in video games, employed by writers to spotlight a personality’s Latin-ness. But, as Latinx critics have identified, it is an ignorant portrayal of the way in which bilingual Latinx folks really converse. Similarly, a Black character on this recreation falls into a widely known trope that feels dated and has for years. I’d have beloved to have seen Croteam put even just a bit little bit of thought into the methods they dealt with the writing round these character’s racial identities.The story can also be often hampered by the sport’s technical points. While Serious Sam 4 on PC ran at or round 60 fps throughout frantic motion, often hitched throughout cutscenes. Pop-in was additionally a constant drawback out and in of cutscenes, with background textures usually arriving halfway by a shot or a number of seconds after a stage started. Both of those issues plagued my preliminary playthrough and continued even after Croteam put out a large day one patch on Wednesday. I additionally skilled a corrupted save, which prompted the sport to crash to desktop once I tried to load it.Serious Sam 4 captured on PCThis all contributes to the sensation that this recreation remains to be a little bit tough across the edges. While Serious Sam 4 performs (and largely appears to be like) nice in fight, its characters look fairly stiff. This suits Sam simply superb; should you performed The First Encounter again within the day, you may bear in mind the moments when the digicam shifted to a third-person view as Sam ran, ramrod straight, to the subsequent stage. It suits Sam’s particular number of generic motion hero cool. But for different characters? Not a lot. One scene that exhibits a crowd of resistance troopers cheering after the normally reticent Sam offers a rousing speech is especially uncanny, with every character’s eyes bugging of their pale faces as they applaud woodenly. I’ve hardly ever been extra conscious that I used to be watching 3D fashions undergo the motions they had been rigged to carry out.Luckily, the fight is as quick and fluid because the cutscenes are gradual and creaky. Thanks to Croteam’s spectacular tech, Serious Sam 4 can now throw an much more ridiculous variety of enemies at you at one time than ever earlier than. Some late-game fights put Sam within the midst of the most important fights I’ve ever skilled in a recreation; they’re the closest approximations I’ve seen in a first-person shooter to the precise dimension and scale of what a violent battle for the planet would possibly really appear to be. The solely drawback is the frequency with which Serious Sam 4 leans on this trick. I benefit from the fight rather a lot, however outdoors of watching the story unfold by cutscenes, it truly is all that you just’re doing. It’s a tense and exacting recreation that can usually have you ever leaning facet to facet as you strafe, totally engrossed in Sam’s bloody wrestle for survival. But it is exactly as a result of that core is so tense that I want Serious Sam 4 had one thing else to supply in between battles. With the fights forcing you into all-out conflict so usually, most periods I felt like I used to be able to name it a day after a single mission.Overall, Serious Sam 4 is a profitable synthesis of the collection’ disparate identities, with humor to spare and jaw-dropping large-scale battles. But technical points, drained tropes and an absence of gameplay selection make it only a stable basis slightly than a brand new pinnacle for Croteam.