Serious Sam 4

[Morenatsu.]

Why does a fucking Serious Sam game of all things inspire such lengthy diatribes.

Serious Sam is Serious Business.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

For the fans, yes. Not for Croteam it seems, otherwise they wouldn't have released what amounts to a milquetoast game.

Reusing elements from past games is one thing, but recycling the same game over and over again got old as far back as Akalabeth and the first Ultima-games.

EDIT: Typo.

 

[Silly Germans]

Its not bad. Definitely fun in coop. I played it last weekend for a bunch of hours with my brother and the main mechanics are good. I liked the addition of enemies with higher mobility like the vampires and the jumping fatsos. The gadgets are fairly inconsequential and dont add/detract anything from the game. Level design is a bit too conservative for my tastes, i prefer the Egyptian themed level design and the more crazy level design from second encounter. I've never played Thalos Principle so i'm neutral on the asset recycling. Shooting shit feels good and is fun. Overall a solid game, better than SS3.

 

[udm]

Finally finished it on Serious difficulty. I clocked in about 33 hours, though about 3 hours was me going AFK. My thoughts:

THE GOOD

• Gun play is the best in the series, hands down. In fact it is some of the most solid I've seen in any FPS, reminiscent of older shooters where every weapon, including basic pistols, had some use depending on the situation. Enemies show good feedback to being shot and every weapon (except C4, but I'll talk more about that later) is useful in some way. In fact, they finally made the double-barrel coach gun a viable choice.
• Dual wielding adds a layer of strategy to shooting. You can pair the tommy gun with the devastator to shoot reptiloids' missiles while maintaining some serious firepower, or grab two db coach guns to 'increase' the rate of fire when you're up against hordes of melee enemies. At the same time, because you can't use the secondary fire function and because dual wielding makes certain weapons more inaccurate, single-wielding continues to be a viable option.
  
• Enemy designs are good and complement one another. All enemies pose reasonable threats now, particularly the gnaars especially the gnaars. Even the beheaded sirians are much deadlier as their projectiles are faster and harder to avoid.
  
• Encounters are challenging but fair. The new item pickups really help with this.
  
• Love the music, especially the Vatican peace/combat tracks. But that's to be expected from Damjan.

THE MEH / BAD (minor spoilers ahead)

Spoiler

• Level design is a mixed bag, leaning more towards negative. A few levels are really good (eg In Carcassonne), but most are mediocre. There are also a lot of game-breaking spots where you can hide behind to cheese enemy hordes. I really miss the level design from TFE and TSE where there was good use of vertical areas and physics/lighting tricks and traps. Even Serious Sam 3 has a few interesting designs. Here, they focused more on making cool set pieces with little thought as to how gameplay could be tied in.
  
• Same thing with vehicles. Some are fun to use, like the tractor and (to an extent) the bike, but everything else is either pointless or clumsy (the mech). Speaking of the mech, be prepared to get stuck by lampposts a fair bit.
  
• While gun play is the best in the series IMO, melee is the worst. You barely even realise whether your melee attacks land on an enemy, and the finishing moves are awkward to use. I don't understand why they removed the melee weapons from Sam 3 and TSE when almost everything else was kept.
  
• The skill tree is serviceable but ultimately pointless. As fun as riding a sirian werebull sounds, there's no reason to take the melee nodes because, again, melee is horrible in this game.
• The movement physics are weird in this game, which makes platforming a bitch (and there's more platforming here than in other games).
  
• I'm not a graphics whore, but yeah the game looks outdated. Besides the overall look, the animations are janky. Normally I'd be ok with janky, but it looks really weird for the C4, which seems to "teleport" from your hand rather than being thrown. As such, the C4 is more or less useless except for certain situations which demand you use it.
  

Overall I'd say the game is still a worthy entry in the franchise, if only because the guns feel so good to use. It's the most mindless and glitchiest of the 5 main games for sure. On its own it's still pretty good, but more importantly, I do think they have a good framework for the next game, provided they stop fixing what isn't broken. Would say it's .

 

[Israfael]

but it looks really weird for the C4, which seems to "teleport" from your hand rather than being thrown. As such, the C4 is more or less useless except for certain situations which demand you use it.

Granted, I've finished the game in the first few days of the release, but I distinctly remember that C4 packs had very discernible projectiles with proper ballistics and such (I've even used them to throw some bombs over the wall and blow up some enemies without risking the return fire). Also, not sure about lower difficulties or anything above serious, but on serious C4 was somewhat useful (it's just you don't get enough ammo for it to be a staple of your arsenal), especially if you just pre-place it in some tougher arenas (like the one where enemies spawn on the periphery while you stand in the centre)

 

[udm]

Granted, I've finished the game in the first few days of the release, but I distinctly remember that C4 packs had very discernible projectiles with proper ballistics and such (I've even used them to throw some bombs over the wall and blow up some enemies without risking the return fire).

Yeah they do, but what I'm saying is they also have this weird effect where the C4 projectile does not sync with the throwing animation. Looks and feels off.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Seems like they dropped this one and fixed old one - Serious Sam 2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/204340/view/3043843659824215488

New guns, dual wielding and fixes

 

[NewGuy]

Just finished the game. Great game overall. Not sure why it was poorly received on the Codex.
A lot of enemies, cool guns, great music, large arenas (for the most part), dual wielding, alternate fire modes...
And unlike nuDoom, where you carry less ammo than a mall cop, here your ammo count is in the thousands, so no problem with being trigger happy.
The humor was not great, but very serviceable.

The only bad things were the janky controls while piloting the mech, and as noted in previous posts, low quality textures. But I find it strange that people complain about SS4's graphics, and then go and replay Wizardry 1...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

But I find it strange that people complain about SS4's graphics, and then go and replay Wizardry 1...

NewGuy

But then again, you've been the new guy for five years now, so I'll lay it down: Wizardry 1 was released 40 years ago on a 43-year old computer system, severely limited in its capacity by its hardware and software. Yet two students found a way to make a fun and notable game on that computer system, spending close to three years on its development in their spare time, using their personal savings.

Serious Sam 4 was at least four years in development for the de facto-leading computer system of the world, one that has essentially no hardware or software limitations (at least when compared to computers 40+ years ago), by a team of seasoned professionals working full-time, racking up costs into the millions of dollars, and yet the end result is a solid "Meh".

Times have changed, yes... but look at it from an artist's perspective. One project is equal to carving out the Mona Lisa on the inside of an ant's butt using a rusty nail, while the other is equal to a group of artists carving out the Mona Lisa on a large mountain using cutting-edge technology. And people are lining up to see the ant's butt.

 

[NewGuy]

Serious Sam 4 was at least four years in development for the de facto-leading computer system of the world, one that has essentially no hardware or software limitations (at least when compared to computers 40+ years ago), by a team of seasoned professionals working full-time, racking up costs into the millions of dollars, and yet the end result is a solid "Meh".

So this is where we disagree. I don't think that the end result is "meh". I think it's a very good shooter because it is strong in the parts which matter (gameplay), and weak in the parts that matter much less (graphics). So the weighted average of the quality is much higher than average.

 

[luj1]

Thank you CroTeam for childhood moments, but this is a turd.

 

[Wunderbar]

Croteam are teasing an expansion pack.



Russia?

 

[toughasnails]

So this is where we disagree. I don't think that the end result is "meh". I think it's a very good shooter because it is strong in the parts which matter (gameplay), and weak in the parts that matter much less (graphics). So the weighted average of the quality is much higher than average.

I liked the game too. Its almost like better done Serious Sam 2 but without the Pixar artstyle, or maybe it's like some mixture of 2 and BFE.
It's a fine FPS.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I've started playing this with a bro with whom I coop'd through all Sam games, and all I can say is that this game is not good. It's hard to describe, but my feeling is basically - it should be fun but it simply isn't. I also strongly dislike all the retardo cutscenes and terrible radio chatter you are swamped with all the time.

 

[schru]

I like to think that adding protracted cutscenes with a story no one's interested in to a Serious Sam game is a practical joke on CroTeam's part. But I haven't played SS4 and I'm not so sure if they actually get what made the original set-up so funny, with Sam's dead-serious delivery of stupid puns combined with the inappropriately over-long expositions on Egyptian temples in NETRICSA.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I've started playing this with a bro with whom I coop'd through all Sam games, and all I can say is that this game is not good. It's hard to describe, but my feeling is basically - it should be fun but it simply isn't. I also strongly dislike all the retardo cutscenes and terrible radio chatter you are swamped with all the time.

Thanks, I was thinking to play this since its on gamepass nowadays but you saved my time

 

[JDR13]

Thanks, I was thinking to play this since its on gamepass nowadays but you saved my time

I wouldn't decide that based on 1 opinion. The majority of reviews are really positive.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Thanks, I was thinking to play this since its on gamepass nowadays but you saved my time

I wouldn't decide that based on 1 opinion. The majority of reviews are really positive.

I always value Darth Roxor's opinion on FPS 's, he thinks like me on those front.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Agreed. Darth Roxor has shown the value of his opinion, time and time again.

(JDR13 has also shown the value of his opinion... time and time again. Just not...)

 

[Darth Roxor]

Since I think I'm halfway (?) through, here's a longer take.

This game feels like it embodies all the (untrue) criticism that has always been thrown against the Serious Sam games and then adds a lot of dumb shit of its own.

The biggest problem and disappointment is probably the level and encounter design, or rather the complete lack of it. You know how some people say that Serious Sam has always been about nothing but arenas and waves of mobs? That has never been true because you've also had regular levels where you moved from room to room to push buttons or grab macguffins. You also had enemy placements in clearly purposeful locations. There were also 'gimmick' arenas with stuff like low gravity, bouncers, buzzsaws and the like. And of course, clever secrets that were both useful and humourous. You won't find any of this in Serious Sam 4.

The levels are literally nothing more than sets of arenas that you progress through. Even worse, the arenas are, for all intents and purposes, completely identical. There are no environmental hazards or gimmicks (really, I haven't seen even ONE), just big, empty open spaces with mobs that bumrush you. The said mobs also don't show any kind of purpose behind them - most of the times it just feels like they all spawn in one place and rush at you. You hardly even have the classic setup of reptiloids and scorpions sniping you from elevated faraway places. Instead they'll just spawn on top of the gnaars and kamikazes and whatever else and das it.

Some of the sections are also much too big for no reason whatsoever, and you'll often come across some empty open space that has NOTHING in it, maybe a single health pack if you're lucky. Normally you'd think it would be a setup for a secret, but nope. This is a gigantic failing on the part of this game - it has DOZENS of places that would have been secrets in the previous games, but now they aren't, including DOZENS of occasions where you can jump 'outside' the level and reach the boundaries of the map. But there's never anything there. At some point you just get so tired of the disappointment that you stop even trying to exploit the level geometry to look for secrets, because there's simply nothing there. And then most of the shit you find is just banal 'secret ammo cache found!' crap.

Moving on, almost every new thing this game adds is grating in some way. For example, I hate each and every single new enemy, because they are either pointless or annoying (or, most often, both). You have retarded monkey people who are fast low-hp melee enemies that appear in hordes. You have flaming dudes who are essentially no different than beheaded rocketeers. You have popamole vampires that materialise only for a moment of vulnerability then teleport somewhere else again. You have fucking sniper humans that replaced the faraway reptiloids and scorpions. And a few others that don't warrant mentioning. You could cut all of them out and the game would be improved.

Then you have the gadgets, which are essentially power-ups like serious speed from the previous games, except you carry them and they have ammo, while the actual power-ups don't exist. I personally don't like that because it's another hit against level design. Then there's the 'upgrade tree' where you can choose between stuff like akimbo or faster reloads, but again, personally I think I'd prefer these to be upgrades you'd unlock linearly through the campaign.

Then you have alt-fires on weapons. I'm torn on that because on the one hand you have an alt-fire grenade launcher for the pump shotgun, but the alt-fire for the pistol or machine gun is aiming down the sights... Also, the alt-fires are unlocked through side quests. Yes, side quests. In some levels there's an optional set of arenas you can go through to get an alt-fire module (or a new gun faster than normally, like e.g. the machine gun in the third or something level). What I hate about this is that it's very in-your-face, and that it's essentially replaced the really useful secrets with hidden weapons.

And finally, there's the deep plot and the deep lore and the deep characters. This is just so bad and so distracting, it might even be the most infuriating part of this whole game. The first two-three levels feel like fucking Half-Life 2 with npcs following you around going BETTER RELOAD DOCTOR FREEMAN. You have constant radio chatter with grating brouhaha one-liners that are never funny. You have emotional engagement where some npcs die in cutscenes and then others go boohoo. You have absolutely pointless and completely serious conversations in cutscenes where e.g. Sam has an argument with a military officer that zumg you left me for dead, zumg that is the burden of command. Oh yeah you also have audio logs spread around levels because WHY NOT. All of this not only feels utterly pointless, but again, incredibly distracting and annoying. And worst of all, it deprives this game of all the light-hearted silliness that was an important part of the previous games. Because now you have "serious" cutscenes, with "serious" conversations, between "serious" characters, and just to be clear, I mean serious as in constipated, and not serious as in 'Serious Sam'. And this shit seeps into everything else in this game - the majority of the secrets are serious, the maps are serious, the colour palette is serious, the enemies are serious.

Yeah. It's bad. At this point I'm playing this only out of a morbid curiosity how retarded it can still get, and because it's more fun to laugh at the retardation in coop than it would be to suffer it solo. Avoid like the plague.

 

[Multidirectional]

Heh I didn't even last an hour into this. Was really off-putting from the start. If I had to choose between the two I'd rather replay SS2.

 

[Anthedon]

And I had planned to get SS4 during one of the christmas sales, oh well.

At least SS3 still had decent level design from what I remember, the first few corridors aside.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the first level in france with the motorcycles might have been one of the worst levels i've seen in a shooter, ever

this game is so insultingly bad it's exacerbating my coof

 

[Ivan]

fuck those portal levels. it's pretty much downhill from there. did you pass the quarry yet? I forget if that's before/after France

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I can't play Ssam 4 because it mandates Windows 10... and I'm starting to think I'm getting the sweet end of the deal here.