Serious Sam 3: BFE Review

[josemlopes]

you should only compare it the first two sam games. TFE and TSE, both games had for the most part normal looking weapons. they were just more classical looking. many of us sam fans dont consider SS2 to be a real sam game since it was so different and not the same.

This has the same effect on me as being served a perfectly-cooked steak, finishing it, and then receiving an apology from the chef because he usually burns it more.

I couldn't remember the previous two games (First and Second Encounter) very well, so I looked them up, and Jesus Christ, really? If Asylum Films [http://www.theasylum.cc/] had a video game division, the cover art of 'Serious Sam: the First Encounter' would be what they made to try and mooch off the success of Duke Nukem.

I mean, look at him [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Ssfebox.jpg]! A man with bulging muscles and a flat-top haircut, wearing a tank top, jeans, and a pair of sunglasses? Fighting aliens with guns blazing, spent casings spilling out of them? That's a word-for-word description of the cover of Duke Nukem 3D [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Duke_Nukem_3D_Coverart.png].

Look, I won't call Serious Sam a ripoff of Duke Nukem, because it's not. But look what I'm left with here: the game that I at least remember enjoying is apparently disowned by the fanbase, in a franchise called 'Serious Sam' starring a character named "Serious" Sam Stone in his (more or less) one-man battle against an alien menace...and one installment was disowned by fans for not being serious enough.

Ugh. I'm probably putting too much thought into this.

Honestly I do think that the character is infact a copy of Duke, although maybe not of Duke since Duke itself is a default macho character.

The games however are very different, the only things that could be considered similar is the obvious over the top one man army and the adventure feel of the game. Gameplay wise Serious Sam is very well known for the "arena" combats style.

And Serious Sam 2 was just awfull, the player spended most of the time shooting toys.

Spoiler

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Hey look...it's an FPS where the multi-player isn't the main focal point of the game! I should probably go grab that now...well, maybe once I get paid. Yes, that's what I'll do. As for the 4/5stars I know this game is going to be good-to-great which is an even better reason for me to exchange my money for this game. Great review!

 

[Pakkie]

Actually the coop is absolutely amazing.... So long as you know how to set up the game and are playing with a group of close friends.

Me and my friends (4 of us) play it on serious difficulty, extra multiplayer enemies and 50% extra enemy health, with 10 lives in total. This makes it much MUCH MUCH more challenging and crazy than single player.

Coops great if ya do it with a group of friends, and you choose the appropriate settings.

Also, just a note about the competitive MP (and I'm not trying to be a massive fan-boy here or anything) SS3 is trying to capture old-school style death match games like Quake and UT, which aren't really around any more, it of course isn't for everyone.

I will agree they mainly forced on the SP here, which is still a good thing.

 

[Metalrocks]

this game is awesome. finally a serious game to have some serious fun. a good old school shooter game. when i got the minigun and suddenly tones of enemies showed up, i just had a huge smile on my face
sure it has some minor flaws like reloading the shotgun (not the double barrel) and the machingun and not as funny as part 2, but still lots of fun.
dont think to get it, just get it. its worth every penny if you like a good old FPS game.

 

[Worgen]

Does anyone know how long the campaign is?

Took me 18 hours to get though the campaign, but I spent allot of time looking for secrets, 15 hours is probably a good time length for it.

 

[Anachronism]

This game looks to be stupidly fantastic amounts of fun, more or less what I was hoping Duke Nukem Forever and Rage were going to be. Assuming my computer can handle it, I may well end up buying this.

 

[idodo35]

this looks like a but load of fun also please please tell me that the music is from the games soundtrack!

 

[Triforceformer]

Took me 18 hours to get though the campaign, but I spent allot of time looking for secrets, 15 hours is probably a good time length for it.

15 hours? I'm sure Croteam are capable of making killing lots of dudes more and more creative, but even that seems like overkill.

 

[CoL0sS]

I'm gonna sum up my experience with this game with a short story.

So I was at a friends house. We were preparing to do this paper for a unrelated college course when he had a girlfriend related emergency and had to bail. "Be back in 30 mins, make yourself at home". I took it as an invitation to browse his Steam account. Than I noticed he had SS3:BFE installed. "Perfect" - I thought, "After 30 minutes of this I'll be so drained and stressed out; a perfect excuse to let him do all the work." So I turned it on, watched that unnecessary intro, ripped a monsters eye out and picked up a sledge hammer. "Hmm, no guns yet." So I spent 10 minutes bashing heads, fighting with confusing level design when I noticed a gun on the floor. But before I could pick it up game crashed. So I reloaded, got the gun and started shooting some dudes, slowly getting to that familiar feeling. But before I could really get into it I got swarmed and died. 5 times in a row. "That's strange, I don't remember sucking this much" I remarked. "Granted, I haven't played any challenging FPS in quite a while, but still". Well, at least I got what I wanted, even if I was more frustrated than stressed.

In short I wasn't ready. I'll need to replay one of first two games before getting this. BFE does not fuck around.

 

[Worgen]

Took me 18 hours to get though the campaign, but I spent allot of time looking for secrets, 15 hours is probably a good time length for it.

15 hours? I'm sure Croteam are capable of making killing lots of dudes more and more creative, but even that seems like overkill.

The last level is 2 hours plus and it does start to drag a bit but the boss fight at the end makes up for it, its fucken fantastic, I just wish was more since its so damn fun.

 

[Zersy]

Can someone please link me to the song that plays in the end of the video supplement ? It's fantastic.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

I approve of this review wholeheartedly. It's a fantastic return to shooters of old while keeping the Serious Sam flavor intact. The game is honestly just great. I can just turn it on for an hour or so and blow up some baddies. It's a blast to play and it's exactly what the shooter market needed to see. I just wish sales for this game would be higher.

 

[themerrygambit]

This review is pretty spot on. There is one really awesome multiplayer mode however that is new and different which is BEAST HUNTER. Its kind of a wierd fusion of coop and multiplayer. The goal is to rackup a high score killing as many monsters as you can... the bigger the monster the more points. However you can also kill other players for points. You don't net much points but if you kill the leader that puts him out of the game for a precious 9 seconds so you can steal the good baddies and rack up points in their absense... It was the most fun I had in multiplayer since the original Unreal Tournament.

I highly recommend BEAST HUNTER with at least 3 players. It's part of the "versus" group of games.

 

[Slycne]

this looks like a but load of fun also please please tell me that the music is from the games soundtrack!

Yes it is.

Can someone please link me to the song that plays in the end of the video supplement ? It's fantastic.

It's the vocal version of Hero from the game's OST.

 

[Caligulove]

Looks like the game that Duke Nukem Forever wanted to be.

 

[lacktheknack]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

Please tell me those enemies aren't as common as they are in the review video.

 

[teh_Canape]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

Please tell me those enemies aren't as common as they are in the review video.

the beheaded kamikazes?
nah, they're not as common as they were in previous games
but bro, when they come, they come in hordes

like, giant fucking hordes

still, those are by far not the most annoying enemies you'll see, no, that honor go to the Kleer Skeletons*

*in every single game of the franchise

 

[dead.juice]

It's the FPS I always wanted... Pure, simple carnage.
Where have you been all my life, Serious Sam...
IT'S ON THE PS3, YES! I'm so gonna try this out.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

OMG, you have to see this new game. Duke Nukem 3D, its cover art is a complete copy of Dooms! It's rubbish as it's copying Doom!

Here's proof!

The main character standing on top of a pile of corpses shooting as enemies, stop the presses!

...right, here's the thing: Duke Nukem (the character) is supposed to be an over-the-top caricature of an action hero. Do you recognize these lines?

"Hail to the king, baby."

"I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum."

"Go ahead, make my day."

"I'm gonna rip off your head and shit down your neck."

"Yippie ka-yay, ************."

Army of Darkness, They Live, Sudden Impact, Full Metal Jacket, and Die Hard, respectively. Is it really so surprising that they made the cover of the game look intentionally like the cover of Doom when they reference piles of action-titles in the game itself?

Serious Sam is a homage to older games, what's your point about it's cover that somehow makes it a worse game?

It doesn't affect the quality of the game. It just affects how original it was. Duke Nukem was supposed to be parody from the start. He was every action movie/game trope rolled into one person/game. Even the cover reflected it: it took Doom's iconic cover and replaced the Marine with a heavily-muscled, sunglasses-wearing avatar of testosterone.

From what I understand, Serious Sam's homage-aspects were supposed to be in gameplay, not in premise. It's the difference between doing a straightforward parody of the Friday the 13th movies versus making a movie about a nigh-invincible villain wearing a paintball mask and killing promiscuous teenagers with a Gurkha blade.