Serious Sam 3: BBFE (the extra B is for BYOBB)

There is a lot of bad critique of Serious Sam. I think it’s one of those niche franchises that doesn’t get understood by the mainstream audiences, like Dynasty Warriors. It’s kinda ironic that the same people would often be super elitist about the Souls games as if they’re misunderstood gems, when they’re literally mainstream hits.

I’m not gonna spend my time explaining why Serious Sam (1) is one of the greatest shooters of all time. Maybe I’ll do that in a SS1 review. But what can be said about SS3 in comparison to the other games in the series? I guess, if I was a hack, I’d complain about reloading, aiming down sights and sprinting, as if added mechanical depth is somehow a bad thing, or about some minor irrelevant detail like sand particles or something. I’ve come to realize that a lot of media criticism is people making shit up to complain about because they don’t understand why exactly they dislike something. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen to me either btw.

After SS4, I was happy to jump back into the classic gameplay loop of horde management with rapid weapon-switching and dodging with high spatial awareness in structurally-complex levels. Something only enhanced by the added sprint mechanic, as Serious Sam always encouraged constant movement. It’s funny, but the feeling of “homecoming” was also there when playing SS3 for the first time, as it followed the “controversial” SS2 that had deviated from the classic formula.

To be fair, SS3 is not quite the return to the heights of the first game. I can totally see someone ditching the game in the first five missions because honestly they’re just bad. They’re very maze-like, and the game throws groups of same enemy types at you, and you don’t have a lot of weapons. This is also where you get introduced to spiders, one of the new enemy types that … uh… I mean, I don’t have to tell you how annoying it is to fight small and fast enemies that can climb walls and sneak up on you. You’re also introduced to the new melee system from the very beginning of the game, and it’s pretty fluid and does come in handy every now and then throughout the game.

But once you escape the city, that’s where the game really opens up and starts feeling like Serious Sam, and that classic gameplay loop returns with a vengeance. The levels are as big and well-designed as the first game, and looking gorgeous in the new engine. Sand floats in the wind, heat shimmers on the horizon, lens flares extend from hi-res sandboxes that stretch out into infinity. Particle effects really add a sense of presence to the place. Hitting walls or ground lifts dust into the air like a John Woo movie, enemies get gibbed in the most satisfying ways and blood leaves splatters on the hot concrete and covers your weapons if you’re close enough to get splashed.

Now, I don’t think setting a game in modern-day Egypt recaptures the sense of mystery that the old games had, but it is such a nostalgia trip. Fuck the decayed Shadow Moses in MGS4, SS3 sets the whole game in the same location as its first antecedent, separated by thousands of years. You get to revisit several levels from the original Serious Sam and see them ravaged by time. But the sense of mystery is still not completely lost, as you get to descend into enigmatic alien structures that are shrouded in darkness and filled with distant lights, the nature of which you can only ponder. In addition, I love how the game has these Arabic graffiti and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions. When you point at them, you get a translation, and it’s always something cryptic. In SS4 they also had this mechanic, but the texts were usually either jokes or tips, so it felt very player-centric, but here they serve no purpose, which makes you feel like you’re immersed into a real world. All of this is accompanied by the same kind of folk-ambient soundtrack with traditional Arabic and Egyptian motifs.

While I’m on the topic of location, I’ll address two of the biggest criticisms I’ve heard of the game in this regard.

1. People seem to really dislike the fact that Croteam reused assets from a canceled military shooter project. I don’t understand this point, considering how these assets perfectly match the vision of this game. You start off in a modern city, then transition to medieval villages and Arabic fortresses, and the game just pushes further back in time through Egyptian ruins the further you progress. Not a very apt comparison, but it’s just like Apocalypse Now in this particular regard, and I just love it.

2. A lot of people seem to hate the tombs because they’re dark and claustrophobic. It’s a surprisingly strong point of contention, considering the fact they constitute a relatively tiny portion of the game. But personally, they reminded me of that anecdote from Akira Kurosawa I once read, where he was talking about how some people hated the on-Earth portion of Tarkovsky’s Solaris because of how long it was, but to Kurosawa spending this much time on Earth only made him miss it more once the movie progressed into the space, and this melancholy was part of the experience. Again, not a very apt comparison because Serious Sam is like the furthest thing from a Tarkovsky movie, but these tombs had exactly the same effect on me. I dreaded going into them, but it was such a relief to get out of them. Seeing that daylight seeping through an opening in the distance always filled me with joy.

I get that all these comparisons to deep arthouse movies may be out of place in a review of a silly gibfest about a wisecracking tough guy straight out of 80s action movies, but really most of the time in Serious Sam you spend immersed into these mysterious and empty landscapes and kinda crafting your own narrative while exploring them. This is what makes video games such a unique art form. They lend unique experiences to every player and result in unique interpretations.

Also, while I haven’t gotten too far from the topic of reused assets, a lot of people seem to dislike the Doom enemies from the canceled Doom project that Croteam once pitched to id Software, but I think they fit this game really well and add mechanical variety. Cloned soldiers are your generic hitscanner zombies and get easily dispatched with an assault rifle. Scrapjack, the local Mancubus lookalike, basically functions like Zumbul from the previous games. And Khnum (Baron of Hell) plays the role of a Reptiloid.

The one new enemy I absolutely hated is the Witch-Bride. She teleports and can grab you from a distance and send you into a seizure during witch you can barely aim, but she is ONLY vulnerable when she’s attacking you. Now, individually she’s not a threat, but when there’s more than one of them or they appear alongside a horde, they become a major pain in the ass. This is probably the only outright egregious design choice in the game in my opinion, and I just don’t understand why and how they decided to do this. In SS4 she was fixed and became actually fun to fight.

I was kinda dreading the big tunnel at the end of the game, but honestly it wasn’t that bad. It gets dark and epic, which is a kind of callback to the Cathedral in The Second Encounter, with the soundtrack playing a variation of its motif. The new weapons – dynamite and devastator – are super useful against crowds. Again, some people complained about the sand rising in the air and making it harder to see, but that’s only a problem in the final level, and it’s by design. It’s supposed to add a challenge and prevent from just spamming dynamite (because there are infinite supplies in that level).

One thing I kinda disliked throughout the game was that there’s this sandworm roaming on the edges of the maps, preventing you from venturing into the empty dunes. Not that there’s anything to be found there, but I loved how the first game let you do that and just waste your time if you wanted to. However, it’s cool to see that the sandworm was incorporated into the story and becomes a major part of the final boss fight. The fight itself was fine, I think. It’s kinda gimmicky, but I’d rather that than just shooting a giant bullet sponge.

I went into SS3 expecting it to be a 7 or 8 out of 10, remembering its flaws and whatnot, but tbh I actually had a blast. Sure, a very slow start, but once the game picks up, it’s that classic incredible Serious Sam gameplay, and it doesn’t let up till the end. The first five levels are bad, but they’re not exactly awful, and there’s still enough new content there to keep you curious to progress. And the Witch-Brides appear like maybe five times throughout the whole game, and most times it’s one at a time, so they’re not major problems. If it wasn’t for these two issues, it would’ve been an easy 10 for me.

P.S. Don't forget to choose the vivid color profile in the settings.