I remember being excited for this game when I saw it coming out. And my brother actually bought it for me when it came out as a b-day gift with the promise that I would play it. Well it would wait a bit before he would get there first with the 360 version and warn me this game was bad. Today, the dice fulfilled that promise, and I have to agree. Still I can say at least this for it. At least its better then Serious Sam 2.
Story: Welcome to a new golden age of mankind. An ancient and technologically advanced civilization was discovered when mankind was at it's most desperate, and the knowledge it held opened up the doors for the species to expand into the stars, turning the future quite bright indeed. But this golden age was not meant to last since going into space tends to draw attention: and in this case it was not attention humanity would want. Without warning, Mental attacked and within 3 years had mankind on the edge of extinction yet again.
With this backdrop we get to meet our hero: Sam "Serious" Stone, a member of the E.arth D.efense F.orce and currently on a mission which may well carry the hope of all mankind. For among the relics of the ancient alien race is a device known as the Time-Lock. It is believed to be a time machine which could alter EVERYTHING for mankind, if only it could be turned on. That might not be as far-off as one would think, for a scientist named Dr. Stien had found what is believed to be an effective instruction manual in ancient Egypt to turn it on. He, his team and a team already on the ground are to go in, recover the scientist and get out.
Though we all know this would not remain that simple for long as missiles are fired onto the helicopter Sam's team is riding in. Shot down, most of the team manages to land close to where they are supposed to and regroup, but not Sam. Since he chose not to wear his seatbelt, he fell out (no I'm not kidding, this is in the opening) landing in a war-torn city. Before this opening is completed, both teams are eliminated, leaving Sam to finish the mission alone.
If you have played the original Serious Sam game (First Encounter, which I WHOLEY recommend), you already know roughly what is going to happen at the end, but there are a few details of interest on the way if not much in the way of twists. This game is basically Sam being Sam and to that end, it succeeds very well even if it is a bit simple.
8/10
Graphics: From a technical standpoint, I can't really say much against this game. Despite being over a decade old as of writing, it's clean and well detailed. If anything, the age of the game really only shows in the uncanny valley of the human characters and how much particle/heat effects have improved over time. The last of those tends to stand out as an obvious (if effective) filter applied after a distance when rendering more then an actual effect in the environment. But really, it has aged stunningly well, especially in motion, and even surprised me from time to time.
Nor can I really say too much against the designs in this game as Croteam basically went back to the game's roots, taking their classic enemies from the old Windows 95/98 games (yes, First and Second Encounter are that old) and "modernizing" them with a grit and polish. Even the few truly new enemies fit the motif, making a very nice looking cast of enemies to mow down!
But the world, you do this in, that's another story. Where as the original games took place in ancient Egypt and Serious Sam 2 took place in various worlds themed like Saturday Morning cartoon versions of more common environments, this time, you are in a war-torn version of the not-so-far-flung future in Egypt. The entire game basically takes place in deserts, shabby war-torn neighborhoods and an occasional Egyptian tomb... and none of it stands out at all. Basically replace brown and grey with beige and desert sand and this game has all the problems modern COD clones all have in looking alike: which is going to be the source of many of it's issues. But for now just don't expect your playspace to wow you at all.
7/10
Sound: Sound, on the other hand, I have absolutely NO issues with. The voice work is frankly corny as hell, but at the same time, this leans into the charm of the franchise. Sam is a wise-ass and letting him let-loose, even when it gets cringy (and it will at times) feels right for the series. In essence, Sam is what happens when Duke Nukem replaces his ego problem with an addiction to the most heavy weapons and explosives he can get his hands on and dad jokes, so it all comes together very well.
Sound effects also feel right at home, many of them sounding almost like they came out of the original games! From the noise picking up items to the sounds of your guns to even the sounds enemies make, if they could take if from The First and Second Encounter, it would seem they did. And this is absolutely how it should be for this series.
But the star here is neither of these things. In this case, it's the music. Most of the time, it works well enough as a calm overtone to the world you are exploring, picking up into something with a bit of speed and tempo when battles begin fluidly. But when you hit a boss encounter, things REALLY kick up as the metal cranks right in, often with a roar before the guitars blare with the call for blood you are about to spill (or have spilt).
9/10
Gameplay: Serious Sam 3, much like the rest of the main series, is an FPS game. You will play through the eyes of Sam "Serious" Stone as he makes his rescue attempt followed by extraction from the hot zone. But if you played any of the previous games and think that means you know what to expect, I'm sad to tell you you are kinda wrong.
For starters, this game actually starts exceptionally slowly, making you start without any weapons at all and you will spend the first half-level with only a mallet before the game will consider you worthy of what has traditionally been your first weapon in the franchise: a hand-gun that trades off having to reload in return for infinite ammo. Don't expect that trade off here.
Unfortunately Serious Sam 3 is a product of it's time, and it came out in an era where, thanks to the rampant success of the Call of Duty games, every first person shooter tried to ape it, for better or for worse. This game is no exception. As a result most of the weapons you would just find without scouring for secrets (there are weapons: classic weapons to the franchise, no less, that you will never run into without finding them in secret locations and ammo will be EXTREMELY rare) behave like they would in COD. You can iron-site most of them and they almost all need to be reloaded fairly frequently, requiring you to figure that into the rhythm of battle. It doesn't take long before the volume of enemies will turn this into at best a tug-of-war over gained ground with them then anything else, making for a frustrating time when you want to move on and hope the next area offers you some break in the dullness of the world yo are fighting in.
But then the game just pours more and more of these enemies into the same spaces, making the tug-of-war into more and more of a slog. Add to this that you can not run and reload at the same time the slog becomes straight up torturous at times. Rinse and repeat and sigh as you have to keep retreading the same areas over and over.
No this game only really begins to feel like old-school Serious Sam late in the game when you get the chain gun: the ONLY non-explosive weapon without a reload you will find until the very end. And if anyone wants to tell me "well they wanted to be real" I will call bullshit on the fact that you will before the game is over acquire a rapid-fire missile launcher and a portable cannon that fires man-sized cannon-balls. Realism my ass.
But of course the game can't get enough of it's cliches and you will eventually hit a point VERY late in the game where, for all intense and purposes, you have completed the mission and we could just move on to the big finale, but the game chooses to drag it out by losing all your weapons for another 3 levels, and just feeling pointless. Between this and now regularly hitting areas with rocket and c-4 crates so you would have enough ammo to kill everything coming at you, it was like the devs gave up but needed to pad out the time.
And on top of that, there are specific points that will piss you off as well: the bosses. None of them are particularly good, but once you fight one, you can be sure it's now a regular troop you will see from then on among the hoard and in multiples: whether they should be or not. You will know what I mean late in the game when you are playing against hoards and a single enemy can teleport and hold you in place while doing damage as a "line of sight" attack. But the absolute king of WTF bosses has to be the last. Spoilers below. Skip the indented text if you don't want to see.
You've finally reached the Time-Lock with it fully powered up, but the team you were supposed to meet are dead... likely from meeting the last boss before you: an absolute behemoth arachnid which will decimate you in a few hits. You would think since every thing up to this point has been about making the kill against the odds that you have to figure out how to avoid him and fight back, but you will find literally nothing in the game that can do enough damage since he actually regenerates his health. You will die or run out of ammo before you effectively scratch him. It was at this point I turned to Youtube to learn how to do it and my jaw hit the floor. On the map are small easily missed piles of sticks that if you run over them, Sam will pick one up. Add to that a rocketpack you never played with (and had no idea was there and no reason to suspect since like the sticks, it's new to this fight only) and you have the items you need. You don't fight him, you jam those into its back having to back and forth for each one and let the thunderstorm that until now as just flavor for the world kill him for you. You don't even really get to kill the last boss after spending over an hour getting to him in ONE CORRIDOR that is so overrun with dudes you will just be holding the mouse done spamming rockets because the crates are there and there is NO WAY you would have enough ammo if you didn't take advantage of it. Absolute slap in the face.
So yeah, the bosses in this game can bite my ass, making an game that started ok and treaded slowly down the trail to horrible complete it's journey.
4/10
Bugs: Sadly this is not a game I can even say ran perfectly. It didn't have any game-breaking bugs, but it did have some bugs that really with modern hardware running it is not really explainable, as well as a few things that will make you have to think about the world you are in before you fight.
- Lag spikes: This is the big bug, right here. Serious Sam 3 heavily uses autosaves which is fine. What isn't fine is every time one is saved, the game pauses to create the save, breaking what little immersion the game keeps going. This can also happen if the game needs to load something like a weapon you chose to use as your session loads in. It's bad enough this issue is here, but this was happening to me with an nvme drive on hardware well beyond anything that would have been available when the game cam out! Unacceptable!
- That pole isn't really there. This game came out when having destructible environments was something to be proud of and it was no exception. MANY buildings and walls can be reduced to rubble if hit with a weapon dealing enough damage. However it also has the other extreme, there are structures, be it polls or trees that you may see there, but have no physicality. You can run right through them, and in fact that's how I found out about this issue... I backed up through one.
- Did that animate? This one is more funny then an issue, but there were times when enemies would "float" to where they were going rather then actually walk or run. It didn't harm the game, but it was jarring (and funny).
Score: Sadly I can not recommend this game. It starts off ok, if slow. But hey, I'm the guy who enjoyed Doom 3. Slow starts do not phase me at all. What does phase me is when the game's own mechanics get in the way of the fun like reloading does for mowing down the sheer volume of what you are asked to mow down. (Sorry, but this should have been balanced much better.) Or areas that throw so many enemies at you, you literally are fighting for the same corridor for 20 minutes to an hour, regrouping at ammo crates cause they never run out of the ammo you need and you will. Or even boss battles that just plain rely on the chance event of you running over the right spots and know what to do with the pickup without cluing you in with anything meaningful. Serious Sam 3 is full of problems in it's gameplay design and while some of it is really just conflicting design and someone didn't tell the devs to "choose one" (just making the guns not need to be reloaded like in the original games in this case would have worked wonders for a LOT of the issues in the game), others are more in depth to specific moments that completely destroy the enjoyment you will have unless you are a COD fanatic.
5/10
System Requirements:
- Dual core processor running at 2.0 Ghz
- 1 GB RAM
- NVidia Gweforce 7800/8600 or AMD Radeon HD2600/3600 or 1800/X1900
- 4 GB hard drive space
- Windows XP with Service Pack 2
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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