THIS GAME IS ALL ABOUT SHOOTING GUNS! MOTHERF***IN GUNS!!!

What a timely collection. With the recent resurgence of Doom in 2016 I feel like people have been looking for more fast paced first person shooters with hints of exploration. I know I have, and while I am familiar with Serious Sam, I still feel like it is a somewhat ignored series, and I hope that people see this collection and pick it up.

The Serious Sam games are very much old school first person shooters. Everything is polygonal because the series only started in 2001, but the gameplay is all about managing large crowds of enemies using a variety of weapons while moving around constantly to dodge enemy attacks. Exploration is rewarded with secret areas filled with ammo, armor, and other weapons. Anyone not familiar with Serious Sam but with say Duke Nukem or Doom will feel right at home, because Serious Sam is not about reinventing the genre in major ways. What is important to note is that at the time, the things Serious Sam could on low end PCs was impressive, because it had large open areas with long draw distances and lots of enemies. With a modern lens these aspects may just seem normal, but at the time Serious Sam was doing things his contemporaries could not.

PLATFORMS: XB1, SWITCH, PS4
MSRP: $29.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $29.99

Plot and writing aren’tgoing to blow anyone away. Serious Sam follows Sam Stone as he saves the planet from alien invaders. Pretty simple. Dialog from Sam however can be comedic at times, and I like that a lot. Sam is basically a less annoying Duke Nukem, who reacts more to the situation and is not focusing on spouting off one-liners he stole from 80’s movies. It’s also hard not to laugh when the Beheaded Kamikazes start running at me screaming. Serious Sam is just a fun series of shooters that I can’t recommend enough.

It is weird though that this collection includes Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter and its Legend of the Beast DLC, as well as Serious Sam 3: BFE and its Jewel of the Nile DLC. To anyone not familiar with the series that may seem complete, but The Second Encounter is not Serious Sam 2, which isn’t in this collection. Serious Sam 2 is by far the black sheep of the series, but I think that only makes it more important and why it should be included here. The last time Serious Sam 2 was available on consoles was on the original Xbox, while the games in this package were all available on Xbox 360. In fact, while trying to find this collection on the various digital storefronts I found a previous compilation called The Serious Sam Collection (please note that this is just Serious Sam Collection without a “the” in the title) which is basically the same collection but also included Serious Sam: Double D: XXL which is a fun 2D take on Serious Sam. This collection is by no means bad, just weirdly missing pieces that I feel should be here simply due to the history of the series or former compilations.

My other major issue is that in both The Second Encounter and Serious Sam 3: BFE I needed to enter the options and set the graphics to performance mode. I didn’t notice too much of a graphical change but the game did feel very off without that change. I can’t say if it is framerate or frame pacing, but it was very hard to look at otherwise. This isn’t just hardware based either, because while I was playing on base Xbox One hardware my editor in chief was not and noticed the same issue. It’s a quick fix and a minor complaint, but it is also something people should know before playing. There’s plenty of options to play with as well, which I was thoroughly impressed with.

Despite my griping about Serious Sam 2 not getting any love in this collection, I do think it is a great place to start with Serious Sam. Not only is it a set of great games, but there’s also multiplayer and co-op. This is a set of games anyone who has loved the new Doom games should at least try, and at the regular price of $30 there’s very little reason not to. Serious Sam 3: BFE still goes for more than this collection on PC by itself, no DLC. It’s a steal, especially if you can grab a friend to play the whole campaign with.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Shooting feels great
  • Lots of secrets
  • Good sense of humor
  • Co-op
  • DLC included
  • $30
Bad
  • I wish it included Serious Sam 2
  • Some weird graphics thing that needs to be changed in the options menu
8.5
Great
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.