These minor diversions from the usual gameplay pattern are weighted towards the latter half of the game, almost giving a feeling that they need to be earned. Mowing down enemies in a combine harvester is entertaining, but stomping around the streets in a Metal Gear Solid style mech is an awful lot of fun. Serious Sam 4 does mix up the gameplay slightly with the inclusion of vehicles and even a huge mech to pilot. The same mechanism is used to select your gadgets, but thankfully once selected you can use the D-Pad to quickly use them. Unfortunately, you’ll often need to try two or three times before successfully switching which costs precious time and often your life in the heat of battle. It’s very sensitive and not particularly accurate, and given the nature of the game you’ll be constantly needing to switch weapons. Overall, Serious Sam 4 is pretty easy to play, However, the weapon wheel makes switching firearms something of a problem. Unlocking a few of these will make your life a little easier, but doesn’t dull the challenge on offer. These allow you to choose one ability, such as dual wielding or item drops from enemies, which then open up a skill tree. Sam does have a few other tricks up his sleeve however, which can be accessed by inhaling somewhat unnerving purple alien gas pods. This, along with the “mini-nuke”, are very satisfying to use indeed. This is essentially a grenade, which when thrown, opens up a black hole and sucks pretty much all on-screen enemies into it. There are plenty to find, such as grenades which make enemies fight amongst themselves, shots of extra health and my personal favourite, the black hole. These little gizmos are crucial to you surviving some truly epic battles. Although, I am disappointed the Serious Bomb didn’t make its return, despite pretty much being replaced by certain gadgets you can unlock. Using these ludicrous weapons against seemingly endless enemy hordes is what Serious Sam is all about. Wielding assault rifles and shotguns is all well and good, but things get a lot more entertaining when you unlock the rocket launcher, devastator rifle and cannon. The curve is fairly gradual too, but by the end you’ll be facing off against literally hundreds of varying enemies all charging directly towards you.Īs well as stocking up, your choice of weapon is key depending on the type of enemies you are staring down over the battlefield. Even on the normal difficulty setting, experienced FPS players will find a good challenge here. If you aren’t enjoying yourself an hour in, the chances are that this game isn’t for you. The gameplay is very straightforward, unapologetically so in fact. In essence, this is the pattern which needs mastering to beat a Serious Sam game. It’s often crucial to scavenge the battlefield for ammo, armor, health and special items to prepare for the next wave of enemies, and handily each type of item has a colour coded border which can be spotted from a fair distance away. Serious Sam 4 is all about shooting aliens (as you would expect) but as always there are secrets to be found by exploring in between skirmishes. There’s a lengthy campaign of 15 levels on offer, which given the lack of variety can prove to be somewhat of a grind. There are a couple which are much more interesting to explore (such as scaling the medieval architecture of Carcassonne) but unfortunately these are few and far between. It’s safe to say that there are plenty of rough edges in terms of performance, but putting that aside most of the levels feel like generic PC FPS locations (many are reminiscent of multiplayer maps from Counter-Strike).
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