Croatia, a little central European country is known for three things: giving France a tough fight in the last football world cup (soccer for the uneducated or Americans), Rimac; an electric car company made famous by Richard Hammond and finally Serious Sam; the man most likely to give modern liberals a heart attack with how much he hates immigrants… from other planets. The first time I heard about Croatia was when I Googled Croteam back in the early 2000s and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that Croteam has probably done more to raise the name of Croatia than any other company.

Serious Sam has always been a high point in the year when a new member releases for the simple reason that it is still an old school shooter that wants to be an old school shooter. Unlike its contemporaries who have tried too hard to copy the wrong gameplay elements from other genres like weak points (Doom: Eternal), hero abilities(Quake: Champions) and similar shit, Serious Sam has stuck to its core and while doing little to nothing new. In Serious Sam 3 they screwed up by making it look relish along with tight levels. let’s see what we have this time.

Story:

Mental has sent his army to Earth. He hopes to take the planet by whatever means necessary. An Earth Defense Force unit led by everyone’s favourite Sam; Serious Sam sets out investigating a lead on the holy grail… wait! Why am I talking about the story? There is no Serious Sam player that cares about the story in the least. All that you need to know from the story is that there is an invasion going on which gives Sam and his friends a job to do. Sadly, the story takes place before any other Serious Sam game so you guys can guess the result.

The writing is bad! It is one of those scripts that is so bad it is good. You will giggle at the lines and the character interactions. Sam’s in level lines have hardly changed over the years making him sound even more like an egotistical, self-confident badass. His whole team has similar lines except Kenny the new guy who spends most of his time sounding lost and scared. With everyone sounding so badass there is no character development so you don’t really feel any loss when they get killed.

Story delivery is done via radio communications and cutscenes. we will cover more of the radio delivery in the next section, it is the cutscenes that are really badly done. The animation in the cutscenes is poor, to say the least especially when you see Sam punching another character. The punches seem so soft they might as well be delivered by porn actors.

Sound:

The sound is great… usually. The background soundtrack is missing most of the time for some unknown reason. It kicks in for some fights but skips others entirely which is just strange. However, when driving the bikes around it has the most perfect music for a cross country biking adventure that I have ever heard. The world sounds non-existent too but that is completely forgivable since Serious Sam 4 has very little if any downtime where you would get a chance to enjoy the world. Most of the time you hear the sound effects from enemies which are just perfect, all the enemy sound effects are well done and let you ID an enemy without even seeing them gives you a chance to switch to the perfect weapon before the enemy is even in range.

The voice acting sounds good, it is not the best I have ever heard but it is not bad either. The lines are written and delivered like they belong in a cheesy movie which fits the theme that Serious Sam has been building up for the last couple of decades. There are plenty of corny jokes and the like but none of them are flat-out bad. The radio communication could have been better if it was a little crackly, it sounds like the person on the radio is right next to you which weakens the immersion.

Graphics:

The world in Serious Sam 4 looks great on first sight. There are tons of buildings and architecture that are straight out of the Renaissance period which makes them look perfect on first sight. On closer look though you can see the textures failing. A lot of the buildings and landscape seem to be using the same textures in an infinite repeat, making it boring when you get up close to study them. I get that this is a small team making the game but a few more textures in a random loop would have been appreciated.

Enemies are highly detailed when you take a look at them. Even up close most enemies keep their detail. I say most since some enemies look like the development on them was skipped due to lack of time. On the whole, enemies are well done with some exceptions.

The weapons look great. They are well detailed and are impressive to look at. I have not seen such detailed weapons in many games before. The firing effects are great as well with the flares and the weapons bouncing on the shot. The weapon animation adds a great recoil effect that generates a punch through your sternum when the guns are fired. This animation is beyond perfect. The shot effects on the other hand need some work since they look like they were made in the 90s. The poor bullet lines from the gun to the target are really noticeable. This applies to the gadgets too that could have been done so much better. The rage drug is the perfect example of a lack of attention because it looks good in use but on closer inspection, there is a lot that could have been done better.

Overall Serious Sam 4 is definitely a graphical improvement over Serious Sam 3. Every element can be better but none of them are noticeable in the chaos that makes up Serious Sam 4. It looks great and its weak points will not be noticed unless looked for.

Gameplay:

I’m sure there are a ton of you who just want an answer to the question: Is this a Serious Sam game? To those of you I say: yes, it is, a thousand times over. Serious Sam 4 hasn’t destroyed the roots that made it. There are still wide-open areas where an epic fuck ton of enemies come for your head. Yes there are still giant guns to help you fix every problem in front and yes there is still an insanely intense gameplay that makes you proud to have been part of the Quake and Unreal Tournament generation. Serious Sam 4 is everything previous Serious Sam games were with little improvements here and there, some good and some bad which we will cover now.

The guns, my god the guns! Serious Sam 4 has a ton of guns ranging from pistols, shotguns and assault rifles all the way to miniguns and rocket launchers. The weapon variety is amazing, the list is not small by any stretch of the imagination and it’s amazing to have so many toys to play with. Serious Sam 4 has also nailed the feelings of the weapons. All the bullet-based guns have such high feedback that I can feel them, they have an exceptional punch which passes straight from the screen to your bones, the shotguns in particular have a feedback that will throw you through to another room from the recoil alone. The rocket and grenade launchers on the other hand feel lacking. They might as well be fired by air rifles for how little of an impact the show.

A new addition to Serious Sam 4 is gadgets. There are tons of gadgets each with their own strong points. The most basic of these is a healing boost which is boring as all hell being a medkit but the rest of the gadgets are great fun. You have time bombs which freeze enemies in their tracks, a blackhole generator that sucks up the horde in front of you along with a drug that makes Sam an adrenalin-fueled junky pushing his speed and damage through the roof. The gadgets are definitely a sign that Sam is not stuck in the old days and is ready to move forward. There is one more update to the formula in the levelling system but the upgrades are mostly boring, once you get the first two or three upgrades you don’t really use the others which is quite sad since they could be fun if they were more active.

The levels in Serious Sam 4 are massive, to say the least. On first inspection they look like any level you would see in the other Serious Sam games but they are much better designed than the other Serious Sam games. The old games had squares for levels but Serious Sam 4 adds corners and edge areas to run to when the enemy forces come bearing down on you. There are also tons of spots to duck behind so that you can take potshots at the enemy hordes who want your head. All the levels have multiple stages for the player to go through each with a different layout making each fight unique. I just wish that levels would have been a little shorter. Some of them go on for so long and the combat starts to wear you out making these levels an endurance run rather than a fun shooter. Thankfully these endurance levels are few and far apart, most levels are only 30 minutes long and keep pumping your adrenalin.

There are optional objectives in each level to add to an already hectic world. The optional objectives don’t usually add much to the game but they do give players new areas to explore where they will obviously meet an additional bunch of assholes to kill. The optional objectives add new areas of the map to explore but they offer very little in terms of rewards. The rewards are boring like ammo, armour or gadgets. These objectives are purely for the completionists among us for the sole reason that we would have more health and ammo if we just skipped them outright. The problem I faced with the optional objectives is that once they are done there is a long-ass walk back to the main route and that gets annoying quickly.

There are also some new special additions to the levels in the form of vehicles. The first of these is a mech that changes the game to Hawken (or Titanfall depending on your preference) followed by a biking adventure from Wild Hogs. These add to the uniqueness of the gameplay immensely. It’s great fun to take out enemies in the mech or to shoot enemies as you ride the bikes along the coastal routes. The vehicles don’t add much to the gameplay but they are a nice break from the standard run and gun.

When you merge all these elements together you get the modern breed of the old school shooter. Serious Sam 4 makes you dodge rather than take cover, it makes you react rather than think which is amazeballs. The new level design gives you places to hide but that spot is only for a few seconds where you can breathe before you need to get back out to purge the enemy hordes so that you have a chance to survive. The pacing is next to perfection, you get multiple chances to breathe just so that you can go into the next level with more rage and anger.

Conclusion:

Serious Sam 4 is a class above most shooters. It is not the best-looking shooter, it is not the most complex shooter but it is the most exciting shooter that I have played in ages. The raw gameplay backed up by the amazing feelings generated by the guns has kept me hooked. The sound is generally average but the effects are a high point dragging you into the overall feeling of being a badass.

Pros	Cons
Cheesy Story	Cutscenes could be much better
Great graphics	Occasionally weak textures
Great level design	The walk back is long
Weapons sound amazeballs	Background music is sometimes skipped
Weapons are amazeballs	Bullet traces are bad
Gadgets are fun	The healing gadget is dull