Serious Sam 3... wait, what?

[Zhukov]

So there I was, in a nondescript war-torn Middle Eastern city that had been lovingly decked out in the seasonal shades of brown and grey. I had taken cover in an ally to listen to the instructions of a distant support character squeaking military jargon in my ear and was aiming down my sights at some distant enemy infantry. As I endeavored to pick the blighters off, all the while struggling to make them out through the dust, glare and assorted screen-blurring effects a strange thought suddenly occurred to me:

"I'm pretty sure this isn't quite what I was looking for in a Serious Sam game."

Now, in the interests of full disclosure and the pre-emptive dismissal of erroneous assumptions, allow me to make several things perfectly clear. I am not an "old-school" gamer. I do not think past generations of games are superior to the current fare. I do not think shooters have been ruined by not endlessly copying Quake. I did not like the previous Serious Sam games. I do not hate iron sights and regenerating health. I am generally optimistic about the industry as a whole. I regard Bioshock as being better than System Shock 2, Mass Effect 2 better than KOTOR and Bulletstorm better than Painkiller.

With that in mind, these are the things that bother me about Serious Sam 3:
- Many weapons have magazines and require frequent reloading.
- Sam moves significantly slower, but now has a sprint button that prevents firing or reloading while increasing speed.
- Many enemies fire fast-moving projectiles that cannot be dodged, enforcing use of cover.
- Sam has an instant-kill melee button that can effectively 'teleport' you to your target.
- The game's environments sport a predominantly brown and grey colour scheme.
- Taking damage causes the screen to go all blurry, similar to suppression in BF3.
- There are frequent linear tunnel sequences in dark environments in which your movement is inexplicably slowed.
- Those fucking skeletal horse things are back.

Any one of those changes would have gone unnoticed, but taken all together they just leave me rather puzzled, especially given how the game was marketed. Y'know, "No cover, all man", "regenerating health is for pussies" and all that. Sure, they didn't include health regeneration, but they seem to have thrown every other damn thing in there. (Personally, I think health regen would have improved the game, but I won't dwell on that for fear of being lynched.)

Let me end by saying that this post is not meant as a condemnation. At the end of the day, Serious Sam 3 is still, well... Serious Sam. It's a ton of fun and it may just have sold me on run-and-gun shooters. The open-area horde battles in particular are a joy to play. It certainly stands head and shoulders above the crowd of militaristic army-fetish modern warfare games. If you were one of the many people disappointed by Duke Nukem Forever's pitiful showing then you should give this game a look.

However, I am left with the disquieting impression that it is fun in spite of the developer's best efforts, not because of them.

 

[Zhukov]

- Those fucking skeletal horse things are back.

Wait, weren't these cheap bastards always there?

Yup. Hence "back".

However, I am left with the disquieting impression that it is fun in spite of the developer's best efforts, not because of them

I made a similar thread on ironsights in SS3, but someone explained in lavish detail about how holding this opinion made me the most worthless human ever. Ho, hum.

Yeah, it looks alright but not as good as SS:TFE or SS:TSE. Like I said back in my other post (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.321605-Serious-Sam-3-does-not-need-ironsights-Full-stop?page=1) these features seem to have been added in the name of "evolution" forgetting that these features evolved for completely different games and therefore make as much sense as adding RPG elements to the next mario game.

Overall, I'd say it's significantly better than both the other SS games. They finally worked up the courage to put the player up against proper hordes of enemies. We're talking dozens at a time, unlike the previous games where most of the time only three of four would spawn at a time.

Of all the alterations on show, the iron sights bother me the least. Only a couple of weapons use them and all weapons are 100% accurate from the hip, so the sights can be completely ignored. (There's even an achievement for finishing the game without sprinting or using iron sights.)

 

[The Rascal King]

I have played Sam's latest outing as well and as much fun as it was killing the fuck out of everything, I had to sigh at the fact that it's just not the same because of the goddamn modern conventional shooter aspects of the game (brown tint on everything, sprint button, etc)

I'm just being a ***** here, but I was hoping Sam went full on lunatic in this one. Levels just pumped full of waves and waves of enemies being combated with crazy ass weapons in crazy ass environments, leaving me in a maniacal laughing fit as I mowed down hundreds of enemies.

I pushed myself through the first level and was delighted by waves of suicidal bombers screaming AAAAAAAAAAHH at me, but after that was over things got kind of lame. 10 minutes later I found myself sluggishly moving through a corridor fighting 3 to 4 enemies at a time while hiding behind pillars(because I play on Serious difficulty) to not die. I quit after the 3rd mission because fuck that shit.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I'll just repost a few issues I had with SS3

haha but no, the older games never pulled the same level of bullshit SS3 does.

The sheer amount of hitscan enemies that SS3 throws at you is ridiculous.

Most of the new enemies are shit (scrapjack isn't new), the witch breaks flow of gameplay no matter which way you kill her. Making the Khuum killable with only cannon/C4 only also ruins the momemtum as does the technopolip with it's hitscan damage and explosives only vunerablity.

No more powerups also damage the variety that the game is famous for.

The sniper and laser + ammo shouldn't be secrets only, they are holding back weapons just for the sake of it and make you run around for gaes if you want to use them all.

The last level is 100% bullshit with the infinitely spawning enemies, the only tme SSTSE did that was near the end but at least it gave you health as well as ammo. It's terrible game design when I kill 2 rocket robot things, 2 technopolips and 3 witches then 30 seconds later I'm assaulted by 3 more witches as I didn't run ahead like the game wanted me to as I stopped to look for health. My only solution from then on was to sprint past all the enemies and just cannon ball my way until the cutscene triggered.

I have more gripes with the game but that's enough.

Overall it's good, 6/10 good but the "all man, no cover" line is bullshit as the first 4 levels are ALL spent in cover due to waves of hitscan enemies while all you have is a shotgun then the new enemies force you to cover as well like the technopolip.

Come at me

The first four levels are supposed to be a parody of modern shooters. (Why most of the guns you get in those are common, iron sights except for the shotgun, and silliness of the Assault Rifle's recoil/damage/lack of 'impact'.) The game doesn't actually 'start' until the first Spaceship boss.

I agree with everything else, though. Also, if they wanted the beginning to be a parody, DON'T MAKE THE SHOTGUN AND ASSAULT RIFLE TWO OF THE BEST WEAPONS IN THE GAME. I mean, I seriously went through most of the game shotgunning and rifleing most enemies just because ammo for those two guns were extremely abundant, and they killed things quickly. The 'fun' weapons like the Cannon and Devastator had extremely scarce ammo. The Mutilator took too long to 'charge', and was mostly worthless. Minigun burned through ammo too quickly for the damage it did (It took like 50 rounds to kill a single Kleer on a high difficulty), laser just plain burned through ammo too quickly, etc etc.

Why, Serious Sam 3? Whyyyyyy?

 

[Worgen]

Actually its a trick, the game starts out like that to make you think its a standard fps game but pretty quickly it goes back to its roots, eventually I even started to appreciate the reloading since it made some of the fire fights more intense and they start using less of the enemies with the normal guns and more with the projectiles you can dodge.

 

[CleverNickname]

It really isn't a perfect Serious Sam game, but I'd still take it over virtually anything else from the past few years.

Still... I'm disappointed by the decreased number in enemies (at once). The need to reload guns is fairly detrimental to the flow of murder-rampages. The over-abundance (early on?) of hitscan-based enemies (shotty/rifle-wielding soldiers, arachnids) prompted me to make this thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.326531-Why-bullets-have-ruined-the-FPS-genre], naming it as the root of many horrible shooter conventions. And I still don't understand why everything you do results in a giant dustcloud that blinds you to all that's going on - which is kinda important in a chaotic game like Serious Sam.
Hell, I even dislike the muted sound of the minigun and how late you (regularily) get it.

On the plus side, the Mutilator is TONS of fun and fairly useful against small numbers - even against the ever-dangerous Kleers! Hammering Gnaars in the face is hilarious and satisfying. Acquiring the double-barrelled shotgun and the minigun still sent giddy tingles down my spine - and the horde after you get it is truly worthy of Sam.

The best point in its favor though is the inclusion of the "Old School" achievement. No manual reloading, no sprinting and no aiming-down-sights - meaning they made the game so that you don't need any of those, ever! Need, as in need in order to progress; how well you do without them is up to you.
I'm playing through it like that and don't miss the sprint, and the assault rifle has perfect pinpoint accuracy without the sights (isn't it a scope, actually?).

Also, at 11 hours I'm only halfway through (single player). Between looking for some secrets, some backtracking, plenty of quickloading and, you know, no sprinting, that's not too bad. Others I play just as slowly and badly I still finish in 8-9 hours. And it was like 32?, not 50. That's some money's worth right there.

 

[CleverNickname]

seeing as you haven't finished the game one wonders how you can tell that you are halfway through the game.

The Old School achievement marks off the levels for which it is succesffully completed - and displays the remaining ones unmarked.