Serious Sam 3: BFE Review

The biggest downside to Sam 3 is its own high strung pacing and constant barrage of enemies. This is a huge contrast between modern shooters where you typically get cooled off after just a taste of action. Here you are in a continuous state of panic for minutes as enemies of all types shoot and run towards you in wide open areas. The last level features extreme numbers of dangerous enemies, constant backtracking and tiresome waves. Almost 7,000 enemies were killed in just over 11 hours. Croteam tried to break the action during the early parts but the later levels are gruelling.

Survival mode sends insane enemy waves at you

Multiplayer is split into competitive and cooperative modes with the latter being the most popular. There are only three small versus maps and one of those is recoloured for the CTF mode. The maps aren’t interesting or structured well so you will grow tired of them after a short time. The spawns are also poor because you will reappear directly behind players in the middle of the action. Projectile weaponry is linked to your connection so the best weapons tended to be the shotguns. You might find one versus server populated during prime time compared to a handful of cooperative servers.

Cooperative mode is the real meat of online play. It allows you to play through the campaign or survival mode with 15 other players. Very little changes from the campaign, with every player having their own ammo reserve. There isn’t much team work and the general interaction involves running around like crazy shooting everything. Enemies lock onto specific players and ignore you running alongside them with a mini gun. The leash can be used with other players to decapitate the biggest foes but it’s too clumsy in the heat of the battle. Oddities with network code will mean you have to lead targets. This is most obvious when trying to hit a kamikaze soldier moving across your screen.

This guy is dressed appropriately for deadly cooperative action

If you haven’t played a game like Serious Sam before then Sam 3 will be quite a shock to the system. It will be incredibly exhausting but it’s more because of what you are used to. Once you have command of movement, prioritizing enemy types and weapon switching the free flowing combat can be strangely satisfying. Serious Sam 3: BFE doesn’t try to push the genre forward or heavily modernize its old formula. Aside from a graphical upgrade it’s like stepping into a time machine. It makes a case that there is life left in this old style shooter gameplay.