Serious Sam 4 Reviews
Serious Sam 4's core shooting is as fun as can be, and the writing is on par with Hollywood's best action flicks, but everything else in the game is too dated for the overall experience to be truly enjoyable.
Serious Sam is a series that has long alluded me and I'm starting to think it might have been for the better. Although this fourth iteration might feature some staggering, titanic battles and silk-smooth gunplay, its existence feels like a clear reminder that it's often best to let the past stay dead. Serious Sam 4 is an excavation from a long-outdated era that is more Duke Nukem Forever than it is Doom.
With an insane amount of enemies that can appear on screen at a given time and an insane arsenal of weaponry at your disposal, Serious Sam offers a hectic good time for those of us looking to turn our brain off and just get into the flow of blowing up aliens. Not to mention, playing co-op with friends lends to combined bewilderment and joy. However, be aware that this game is a slog on PC with performance being highly variable. It will require a lot of graphical tweaking, but thankfully Croteam has provided a plethora of graphics options which should make finding that performance sweet spot a breeze.
Serious Sam 4 won't rewrite the book for narrative FPS campaigns and that's perfectly fine. It sticks close to the series' roots while offering some contemporary improvements and improved presentation. If you're hankering for some straightforward shooting action that doesn't take itself too seriously, Sam "Serious" Stone's got your back.
If you like the idea of running and gunning, feeling well and truly outnumbered but having a chance to defeat the odds then this could well be up your alley. If you require a bit more polish and seriousness (pun semi intended) in your game then this may be more down a dark path.
I suppose fans of the franchise might still enjoy this latest addition but it's mostly a nostalgia trip now.
The absolute best Serious Sam 4 has to offer are things we've seen plenty of times before, and that just simply doesn’t cut it given the amount of annoyances it contains and how far other movement based shooters have come in the same time span.
If you like the idea of running and gunning, feeling well and truly outnumbered but having a chance to defeat the odds then this could well be up your alley. If you require a bit more polish and seriousness (pun semi intended) in your game then this may be more down a dark path.
Though flawed, this blast from the past manages to scratch an itch that is over a decade old
Sam Stone is back, and the folks at Croteam have made one hell of a fun FPS. Published by Devolver Digital, the Serious Sam games at their core are a string of firefights to kill the invading aliens. Sam and co. accomplish this in style while spout off one-liners, causing massive amounts of alien gore, and facing enemies around every corner. Serious Sam 4 is no different, if you've enjoyed the previous games, you are in for a fun ride with this one, literally in some levels.
Serious Sam 4 shows a repetitive and bland level design with no fresh solutions for modern players. It is not an evolution for the series, nor what a 2020 shooter should be.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It's not funny.
Stick Serious Sam 4 in performance mode, then, and while your experience won’t be perfect on PS5, you’ll still have a bloody good time. It’s perhaps the humour and simple premise of the game that will be more divisive; some will love it for its daft one-liners and balls-to-the-wall action, others may find it too repetitive and macho. If you like the idea of butchering an entire army of monsters ranging from vampires to reptilian demons that throw green balls of energy at you, however, then be sure to give it a go. And what other game lets you loose in a combine harvester to up your body count?
Is Serious Sam 4 the best game in the series yet? Quite possibly. I still prefer the Egyptian setting of Serious Sam: The First Encounter, but the action found in Serious Sam 4 is unrivalled. Trudging through city streets in the early hours of the game can be uninspiring at times, but it’s never dull.
Serious Sam 4 is a delightfully old-school first-person shooter that doesn't bring a ton of new stuff to the table but still hits all the right notes.
I don’t think Serious Sam 4 is necessarily a bad game, I just think that its disappointing in a lot of ways. It has been almost a decade since the last game, so I was expecting something that was a little more polished, refined, and well-thought out, even if it was “just another Serious Sam game.”
I'm not the world's biggest fan of shooters, but I have a soft spot for Serious Sam. It's partly because it exists to make fun of the rest of the genre, and do so in a colourful, easy-going way such that it's the equivalent of a Sunday morning cartoon. It's also all-action, but in the right way. I find more realistic shooters stressful when I'm being swamped from all sides, but Serious Sam does such a great job with the power fantasy that you'll look at a screen filled with 100 ugly beasties... and wish they had brought friends. I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Serious Sam earlier in the year with the collection. With Serious Sam 4 I have a game that should have done better on the PlayStation 5 hardware, but is a new favourite shooter anyway.
Croteam has yet to surpass its first two Serious Sam games, with Serious Sam 4 basically being one more entry; one that is great fun, but far from an evolution of the series. The flaws are aplenty, although they are rarely very serious (pun not intended), making this fourthquel more disappointing than bad - because, make no mistake, this is very good. Sure, it's not the best Serious Sam game… but still a Serious Sam game. Fans of serious action will understand.
Serious Sam 4 is the sad story of a franchise that tries so hard to adjust itself with the flow that forgot its own origins. The result is a game that can neither attract new players nor entertain the old fans. If you are looking for a massive, fast paced shooter full of strange enemies, Serious Sam 4 is not a solution for you.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Despite some (mostly successful) attempts to tweak the formula, this is, at its core, Serious Sam exactly how you remember it.