Serious Sam Review

As Levelord would put it, this game is "sheer Fun Factory riding on top of a solid engine". I played the demo, but the final version appeared a lot more polished, and it also revealed the other face of the 3D code. Unlike what I've previously believed, Croteam's engine is in no way one-sided. Besides the high quality animations and great physics, this sucker can deliver gloomy just as well as bright, colorful and shiny - some of the trademarks of Serious Sam's 3D technology. It renders outdoor environments with ease, and it is equally efficient indoors. What also amazed me is the rock-solid frame rate when the screen is virtually loaded with creatures. And when I say loaded, I mean "Tokyo gay club on a Ricky Martin night" loaded with high-poly critters. The game was choking a bit on Quality / 32-bit settings in 1024, on my T-bird and GeForce 2 GTS rig, but it worked like a charm once I simply chose "Normal" over "High Quality" video setup. Luckily, the menu has a whole lot of video options and you can fine-tune the game's performance without loosing too much of the overall visual quality.

I should also give props to the decent high-res texture work, and the fact that the Sun appears more "natural" than in any other FPS to date. Seems like a trifle, but it actually adds a lot of ambient to the whole Egyptian desert theme. Ya know -- Sphinx, sand, Pyramids, and heat. The water reflections look great - especially the way the sewer water reflects off the narrow walls and low ceilings on the Sewer Level.

However, all this 3D engine quality wouldn't mean much without some kick ass gameplay, and this is where Serious truly shines. This game is all about FAST. How fast you can get through a level, how FAST you can kill a billion monsters, and how fast you can switch to the appropriate weapon. The idea is to take the player on a roller coaster ride -- you go WHOOOSH left, WHOOOSH sharp right, up and down, and BAM! It's all done!

Now this may seem like an easy task, but it's not (I can see Roman going - yeah, no shit!). Croteam has carefully picked the spawning points for the monsters and you can plainly see they play tested this sucker 'till their fingers bled to get the gameplay dynamics right. It's all about finding the right recipe and that takes skill, time, and a whole lot of trial and error. Luckily for us, we don't get to see the play-testing phase. The end user simply tags along for the ride. Sweet!

Finally, I've already mentioned that Sam features a whole lot of OOMPHY weapons. There's nothing particularly original about a rocket launcher or a double shotgun, but the special effects and the number of particles that are chipped off the objects and are flying around from the ricocheting bullets give you that lovely blow-stuff-up, I'm-so-glad-I-scored-this-juicy-frag-with-a-BANG feeling, which is I guess crucial for any good arcade shooter to work. I'd tell ya more about the arsenal, but let's just leave some things for you to explore on your own.

Yeah, It's Worth It!

This game's got me going "Operation Wolf" style, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any arcade shooter fan out there. It actually lives up to the hype, and even surpass is it if you can believe that. Now, how many times have you seen something like that happen in this industry?

Oh, and did I mention the $14.95 price tag?