Serious Sam 4

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. And once Serious Sam 4 opens up it becomes an absolute riot on a scale never-before witnessed. In fact, Serious Sam 4 is the first game to give me some next-gen feels. If you like blasting hordes of aliens in the face while listening to witty one-liners, this is an absolute must-have.

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 has everything fans of the series could want and more. The fights are chaotic and extremely violent and the gunplay is the best its ever been. It can get a bit redundant and it overpromised on certain features, but anyone looking to demolish thousands of aliens will find tons to love here.

If you're in the market for a fun, first-person shooter, I wholeheartedly recommend Serious Sam 4. It has its flaws and might not be the shooter of the year, but it is still one-hundred percent well worth a playthrough.

Serious Sam 4 is, without question, the series’ high point. It provides all of the wanton violence the brand promises, adds a story worth investing in, and still has the time to try out bizarre experiments like the open-world areas, kaiju battles and an extremely retro game-within-a-game. Serious Sam has never been better than this, and the sequel hinted in the game’s ending had better arrive faster than the nine-year-gap since the last one.

It may not top Serious Sam 3, but even then, this latest entry in Croteam’s beloved series is still a winner. Serious Sam 4 is fast, loud, insane, and just straight-up cool.

When everything is trying to reinvent itself in the forms of a remakes and reboots, Serious Sam 4 stays true to franchise's identity, which still feels great, even by today standards.

An action-packed adrenaline shot to the head that lives up to the rest of the classic FPS series, Serious Sam 4 provides a lot of high-end fun sprinkled with death and destruction.

Serious Sam 4 doesn't deviate from the other entries in the mainline series, and that's perfectly okay. The fourth installment looks and handles perfectly, though some players may succumb to the repetition before the campaign concludes. That said, it's still an absolute blast to play, and it should keep fans busy for quite some time.

Delightfully chaotic and ruggedly lovable, this is a decidedly old-fashioned shooter that succeeds on the principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

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.

Serious Sam 4 is easily the richest game in the series, expanding on the character and his world while not holding back on the action that’s been the major draw from the earliest days. While it starts off gently and takes a bit to ramp up, soon enough rampaging werebulls charge in with a swarm of kleer, backed up by big green four-armed reptiloids tossing homing-spheres, plus a nice variety of new enemies to fill in the herd.

The shooting borrows from modern classics like DOOM while retaining the unique battles that give the series its cult classic status, and the narrative mostly succeeds when it remains over-the-top and completely carefree. Serious Sam 4 learns from what didn't work in Serious Sam 3 and should be on the radar of not just series fans but for anyone who enjoys a good, well-made FPS.

Serious Sam 4 is a natural evolution for the series. There is nothing groundbreaking here but it is just such silly and extravagant fun to play. The endless series of arena battles should begin to feel repetitive but the gunplay and challenge is perfectly pitched so each one provides a satisfying adrenaline rush. While not a true contemporary update like those of Doom and Wolfenstein, this first-person legend comes out guns blazing and, let’s be serious for a moment, that’s what we all wanted him to do.

It's still a very good game, just not a particularly original one.

Serious Sam 4 doesn't betray expectations but those who expected something more than the same old stuff will probably be disappointed.

Serious Sam 4 keeps its promises and turns out to be a more than average old-fashioned shooter, but don’t expect a great deal of innovation, variety or excellent graphics.

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.

Joy, cheerfulness and the gleeful sounds of carnage accompany us in the carefree fragfest that is every battle, but still Serious Sam 4 feels old: it's like going back to the nineties without anything having changed. In its simplicity, Serious Sam 4 is the very essence of old school shooters, condensed into a dozen hours of gameplay. It represents first person shooters as they were in the beginning, in the fabulous beauty of their original sin: a bloodthirsty naivety made of exaggerated weapons, alien bits and frenetic battles against unreal hordes of enemies.

Despite some (mostly successful) attempts to tweak the formula, this is, at its core, Serious Sam exactly how you remember it.

Serious Sam 4 returns to the classic FPS genre in this new prequel full of carnage, high-caliber weapons and short jokes. The classic comes with the same bases as always and a fun multiplayer mode that will delight fans of the saga and can leave new players a little cold.

Serious Sam 4 is another iteration on a successful formula of pedal-to-the-metal first-person shooters, and at its best, it’s a pure shot of adrenaline that can remind anyone from cynics to novices why the FPS took off in the first place. It needs some more time in the oven and a few coats of paint before it’s done, though. By the time it hits consoles in 2021, SS4 ought to be well worth anyone’s time, particularly as a co-op game.

Serious Sam 4 has done seriously well for a series that hasn’t seen a mainline game in nearly 10 years. Croteam went all out on this one and has filled it to the brim with rewarding gameplay, hidden goodies, and a great soundtrack to boot. Unfortunately, there are a few kinks in this pipe, such as the sub-par story, weird character models and animations, and other gameplay bugs. But no doubt, you’ll only be interested in carving through hundreds, if not thousands, of enemies with a huge arsenal of skills, weapons, and gadgets, and that’s exactly what Serious Sam 4 has done so well.

Serious Sam 4 is a very good game in an underwhelming package. There's no doubt that the relentless carnage and large levels hit the sweet spot of old-school FPS charm in the solo and co-op modes. It feels good to shoot, dodge and scramble to pick up items at a frantic pace. The various bugs, long load times, and lackluster presentation drag things down significantly. It is well worth playing if you need a classic shooter fix, but be prepared for rough times until a few patches come into play.

The truth is, even if 2020 didn’t need Serious Sam 4, it’s here anyway. The game considers loyal fans through it’s added levels of customization while acknowledging new fans with some narrative moments to get to know this insane cast of characters. Some aspects feel dated in the graphics and AI, but when hundreds of enemies are running your way, none of that matters because all you can think about is what weapon you’re going to use to take out the trash.