They literally went to France took pictures and tried to make it as real-world accurate as possible. Which while impressive does not fit with the gameplay of Serious Sam which requires flat open arenas.
If you play the games in the chronological order (SS4, SS3, SS1E/2E, SS2) the games are about a dude that slowly becomes mad and gets trapped in a cartoonish hell.
Why would they even rush serious sam I understand that gaming communities is on a all time high due to this quarantine but serious sam isn’t that hyped enough to be rushed
SS4 was announced in 2013. However it was delayed endlessly because Croteam took on other games. Talos, Scum, other SS VR stuff. Don't take SS4 summary from this video though. It was a review code before the 43GB (day one, or one day before release) patch. Croteam shot themselves in the foot with that. SS4 is doing 80% positive on Steam. Great looking game and great fun to play.
@@radek4634 You can't compare SS3 and SS4... SS3 had monsters from the word go. SS4 had empty ass plains of nothing. I heard they already fixed some of that but damn..
@@therealbubble4696 When the E3 trailer was there and it showed these empty big maps, I thought WTF are they doing? How hard is it to create a Maya temple and a shitload of trees instead of an empty bland looking map?
As that's cool, I'm just starting SS second encounter (is that the second game or an expansion of sorts for the first one?) But I'm super excited to play through the rest of them!
@@greatmatt301 Second encounter is like the UT2004 to first encounter's Ut2003. A much improved asset flip. The actual sequel, serious sam 2, is a totally different game.
Realy sad to see that new Sam looks like a steam early access unity engine game, this series was with me from my early childhood, but this looks even worse than DNF
@@chaosvolt I disagree, Bethesda games are always well polished, *VISUALLY* . This one looks just ugly and amateurish, lacking detail and looking artificial. Like those early access craps that try to pull out an open world, but since they got no experience and resources, you end up with a half-assed map.
Not necessarily. Cartoony looking games with high rez graphics are still gonna be resource intense I think the main point isn’t that it will be technically less demanding, but less demanding creativity/design wise. Fantasy weird ass games require all sorts of thinking, new designs and revisions to make sure everything flows well with each other to make a coherent world. If you’re using realistic design it’s ‘easier’ to pull off. They can just look at real life, other games and even the previous SS game for examples/assets, rather than creating entirely new things.
@Lord Skeletor 3 had great weapons, a supreme soundtrack, the best one liners and felt badass to play. The level design was hit or miss (people complain about the early game but its definitely levels 10 and 11 that bother me) and some monsters were bad like the witch bride and technopolips but for the most part in was a very good entry in the series.
I worked in 3D simulation development for a while, texturing and lighting character models in Unreal Engine. I'll mention that eyes and mouths are a pain the the 4ss because it's tough to get the internal shadowing you need to keep the inside of the mouth, the nostrils, and the top of the eyes from seeming to glow. It's because of the polygon normals, and how the direction a polygon is facing will determine which direction it can cast a shadow in, performance limitations for self-shadowing, and there are probably many tricks that work well, that I didn't know to use. I think that's why we see the glowing eyes. I'm not at all saying that this is impossible to fix, but after doing a lot of 3D for feature film VFX, I found the way lighting works in Unreal to be very difficult to get used to.
100% totally agree on the art style. SS just doesn't suit the modern/realistic palette. I much prefer the original games art. Much more in theme. This just looks dull and drab.
You almost can't do a realistic art style as a small studio because it will end up looking like a game from 2007, the texturing and other things take too much time and money. They were fools to use this art style
@@elperronimo My take on this is because they used photogrammetry to scan in (like how RE7 and other RE Engine games use it). Just because you have the means, doesn't really ensure it'll suit your game.
The game looks exactly like the "alpha test" back from 2018. It feels really rushed, and no core mechanic is completely finished. They seriously messed up on the terrain, it looks like a rejected COD game.
If there was any franchise that didn’t need to be made even slightly realistic it’s Serious Sam. It’s tongue in cheek cartoony excess was what made it fun and stand out in the first place.
SS 2, for sure. SS the second encounter, that is true for some enemies. But SS1 was pretty much realistic. It has goofy moments, the rest is realistic.
@@kofola9145 Umm... the graphics and scenarios kinda are, but it had much more charisma and personality, things that the franchise lost since Serious Sam 3. Serious Sam 2 was a pile of dogshit too.
@DoomestosYT I dunno. I found some of SS 3 scenes kinda funny until I noticed it took itself too seriously and that the parts I found funny were actually meant to be serious. "Growing up"... well, that's like saying Max Payne 3 grew up since Max Payne 1/2 just because it became hyper-violent. In any case, I haven't played SS 4 yet but hooooly fuck does it look horrible with the direction it has taken. Combat looks kinda fun but all those characters and dialogue and upgrades and stuff... just no.
it really deserves better, i recently replayed the game, i think i only had one crash but my whole experience was really smooth. they really fixed the game
@@DukeoftheAges well the OG serious Sam games are rock solid too and the remasters were done well. There's some questionable stuff in SS3 already thoogh. They've had a few good games but it's been many years since they released a totally new quality game outside of Talos Principal and some remasters.
Probably they knew they are making a stinker, but had to publish something to either fullfill contractual obligations or keep the trademark. Or some other such nonsense
@@lysytoszef nah, they have been developing this for 6 years. If that was the intention, they could had just developed a shitty mobile game. I literally can't come up with a hypothesis to explain this disaster. There was no plausible reason for this to happen. They had the technology. They had the experience. They had the time. The only thing I can think is that they blew the entire fortune they made with Talos Principle in hookers and coke.
@@SGtMarkIV Maybe. But it's as possible that they realized mid-way that the game will simply not work but instead of postponing/suspending/re-doing it they just crap it out cause they simply had to
theyre playing make believe AAA devs, spewing "next gen tech" buzzwords such as "100k enemies on screen" and having pointless cinematic cutscenes and similar fluff they have no idea how to design a quality shooter, they focused on being grand and superficiality instead of all the subtleties that makes an old school shooter great They should learn from DUSK or ULTRAKILL
Yeah.. I don't think I've ever really enjoyed their cinematics in their games. The gunplay and the enemies has always been the point of the series for me, while the cutscenes tended to feel quite boring to watch.
@@Dregomz02 I've been waiting for a good ss game since the second encounter. i thought i enjoyed serious sam 3 but it was just bland. and i was excited when serious sam 4 was announced..noww, I'm just disappointed
I get that it's a serious sam game and that's kinda their schtick to be big and bombastic but truthfully I don't need all that AAA fluff, I just want fun encounter design in a scale that is reachable within the developer's budget. Cutscenes aren't even necessary in a serious sam game in my opinion, just have a little text blurb about why you're there then let the player loose. If you need further lore, add little diary entries you can find in secret areas. Ambition is how the best video games are made, but if you don't have the means, work around limitations and polish what you _can_ do.
@Amadeus Eisenberg Evidently, the publisher just wanted money. That'll obviously be most (if not all) publishers' top priority, but when it's this bad, it's straight-up greed.
I personally like SS3, especially its DLC (Jewel of the nile), also played through TFE HD, TSE HD and SS2. (Didn't play the next encounter, but seems to be great as well). indeed TFE, TSE are the bests however SS3 is close up right there. SS2 is good, the cartoony stuff is way too much, however the rest of the game is great. SS4 has its moments but, this is the first game which actually felt like more of a cod, doom, nukem, mix than an actual serious sam game. (Next to the bugs and graphics problems, which are obviously problems). SS3 managed to capture the serious sam feeling at least. (Many people hate it for valid reasons, but it is still a serious sam game, the desert levels capture everything what SS is about imho). SS4 indeed needed more time, it could have been way much better. Also time to stop with the prequels and develop a sequel in which Mental can be seen finally at least. (If not fought)
I feel like when games take this cinematic storytelling route it almost always backfires alot, Serious Sam is an arena shooter with a ton of action, should have kept it that way during the whole thing and maybe put you in first person during the cinematics so you can atleast feel like you're there
For the kind of game that heavily relies on heavy adrenal action, cinematics pretty much ruins everything and breaks the flow. Except for Serious Sam 2. The cinematics are welcoming and joke around more than covering an event taking place. Some of the cinematics just sums up what you're up against. Like the flying alcoholic witch that smashes into a train, which can also happen naturally while playing. ;)
@@muffinman2546 Personally I felt SS2 was heavily improved by playing in co-op, because the cutscenes don't play in co-op. I really like SS2, but I do hate the cutscenes.
@@todesziege Yeah. They are kinda nice the very first time but really irritating the second time and onwards. + Co-op actually let's you customize the difficulty to irrational extremes like 500% enemy strength and health multiplier but with infinite ammo. ;)
@@muffinman2546 There are lots of benefits with playing co-op -- it's the best way to enjoy Sam in general I'd say -- but I didn't go into anything else since the thread really only was about cutscenes. Comedy will always be a bit subjective, but I don't think I would have enjoyed Sam 2 any less if it didn't have cutscenes -- rather the opposite.
@@thisemptyworm4677, well you're right. I am disappointed because i know that they have so much talent, they could make a master peace of the genre, but at the end, they want to appeal the massive audiences
I really hope you're wrong about it being the last serious Sam game, it's been almost twenty years since it started, and it would be a shame if mental was never defeated.
@@rodrigoaugusto2912 well technically, there already is a game where you kill mental, but tormental is a spin-off and it's not canon, we can't even be sure if that's what mental even looks like in canon.
It’s not gonna be the last game. They are also working on a complete reboot of Serious Sam 2 to make it a proper sequel instead of that really cartoony mess.
What do you mean going realistic? Every Sam game has been as realistic as possible. Most are just really old games and thats how realistic things got for the tech of the time.
@@_evildoer yeah, but imo ancient tombs & cities, temples, space, and Big ass waterfalls are way more interesting than a regular street and some empty fields next to a motorway
And it's not even anything new. Assuming that the background NPCs don't actually possess any AI (which seemed to be implied), numerous games have done this. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, for example, had dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of NPCs on the Omaha Beach level. However, virtually all of them had no AI, and were just there to add to the atmosphere. It's not a tactic that we should need to rely on anymore; developers should be able to have tons of AI NPCs on screen simultaneously.
@@googlewolly Hell even first and second encounter had awe inspiring number of enemies on screen at a time. For what it was worth back in the day. And it was fabulous! Compared to that, this one looks more like a corridor shooter.
What is this game? Serious lack of budget 4? Something has gone terribly bad if a game like this looks and plays like an early access steam game. What a mess.
it look like they just use whatever pre-made unreal engine assets available then slap it together and... *BOOM* there you have it, Not So Serious Sam 4.
Well Croteam has never been a AAA developer, I don't know where you got that idea, but they're a small indie developer with low budget, always has been, SS4 shouldn't be a big surprise.
I dont think is "ugly" more like boring which is strange since its clear they took some of the work they did with Talos Principle and copy pasted it onto Serius Sam 4, Talos Principle is beatifull to look at but its seems they just copy pasted some parts to Serius Sam 4 without doing any extra work and even making some of the art style and assets taken from Talos Principle look bad
@@mapacortes2117 It's definitely boring, nothing much sticks out, but the flat lighting and textures, the character models and animations, the flat scenery... it just looks really ugly. I think the comparisons to an early access steam title are harsh but true, and it's kinda sad.
@@KBWrecker 6 years in develepment for a game that already has 3 games behind it? I swear you have to actively try to make a shitty game to actually achieve this final product
I was actually looking forward to this but the consensus seems to be it’s a subpar Serious Sam game. It’s a shame but I won’t buy it, I don’t want to support a game that’s synonymous with mediocre. Gonna be wasting my money on the Doom expansion instead.
amazing how they've learned so little from serious sam 3 after 9 years. after the complaints people had about that game, you'd think they'd go more in the direction of the first and second encounter, not more of 3.
Well said. Give me the wild ancient cities and their varying degrees of verticality, platforming, booby traps and waves of enemies. You can keep the reloading, kill animations and bland modern levels.
Tied in with the "original" storyline of galactic invaders every few thousand years ('cough' Mass Effect), and enemies from DOOM, lol. I mean, I see the effort is there. They're trying to make an ode to DOOM, Duke Nukem,' and even Wolfenstein, but man...what do you think they need? Better story? Level designs?
It even looks underwhelming. I'm gonna be honest. I understand why people liked the games when they came out, technical limitations back then and such, but this in 2020? It looks like you spawned a bunch of enemies on a default Gmod map.
If I'm being honest that's what most of this series looks like to someone like me who isn't actually familiar with it - a bunch of enemy assets plopped into example maps from a level creator kit. It's why I never bothered with them.
@@ViralOutbreak89 That's honestly kind of what the series is about. What made it a stellar series (the older titles) was the gunplay, the humor on the level of Duke, and the extremely varied locations. But the main selling point was each encounter was a huge arena where you fought tons of enemies. Even on the very first title. The encounters were a scaled back version of Doom slaughterfest wads. But instead of just placing 100x of one enemy on a map and calling it a day. The encounters with serious sam have always been balanced. Each unit brings a unique challenge so when you have them all in a group fighting them, it becomes an adrenaline fueled slaughterfest. Similar to PainKiller. As Painkiller was known for that as well. (But Pain killer took the theme and used gothic levels and enemy types, plus super natural powers instead of just pure gunplay.)
@@ViralOutbreak89 It is... Kinda. The first and second encounter had. a REALLY good level design, combined with music, sound design, humour... This game lacks everything that the other ones had. The previous title may seems like "Gmod arenas" but they were personalised, they had a soul, they had that Serious Sam feeling. The enemies were unique, you had to face each enemy in a single way (kinda like what Doom started doing recently), the game had a soul, an interesting gameplay and a immersive world. This title has none of that, so it literally is a G mod map filled with random enemies... Unfortunately. :(
"The game is once again a prequel" because Croteam would rather be forcefully converted to veganism than come up with a satisfying ending to the series, when they can just keep jamming in unnecessary back story
Luckily this isnt the final main game im sure,i really hope the fifth part actually means something after the SS1 stuff,like travelling to time and fighting mental off,etc.
@@Laki99000 I wish Croteam respected the fans as much as ID loves them. Fuck I'm jealous of Doom fans! I even heard that in SS4's story they made it canon that "every Sam game takes place in its own timeline/universe".... Yeah Croteam went with THAT while ID confirmed with Eternal that Doom 1, 2, 64, 2016 and Eternal create 1 canon. I just want Sam to get a big W god damn it and not just prolonging the inevitable destruction of Earth as shown at the end of SS3.
Another great review. I do still think we need to stop saying Covid this and Covid that even has a partial excuse, the problems showed by this game are not a "last 9 months thing", they go deeper
@@smugplush It was only an excuse for maybe a couple months, at most. But other companies are pretty much acting perfectly normal now. That's why I don't consider it that much of a good excuse. I don't think the game would have been ready, Covid or not.
@@smugplush It's a lot more efficient to work from home if you are in the creative business. Have a quick skype call about the project, coordinate your efforts, and then do your part from the comfort of your sofa with your cat sitting on your lap. I can understand a lot of businesses going to shit from this whole thing, but I honestly can't imagine how game development could be made easier by working out of an office. That kind of thing made sense in the infant days of the internet, but now that you can send 100s of megabytes of data in a couple of minutes at worst, there's no reason for the creative types to shave and shower, commute and put on something that isn't a PJ or t-shirt and shorts. The Serious Sam franchise was always about low-budget, high-octane entertainment. If they can't deliver at least half of that, the flu isn't their biggest problem. After all the great games Croteam have created, the only valid excuse they have for this cock-up is: *"We done fxxked up."* Personally, I am not holding out any hope for a Serious Sam 2 2, so at this point, I'm willing to let it die. Sad, because I used to really love the series.
@@evanharrison4054 I think you're forgetting about the "technical" aspect of video games. Trying to fix bugs or coordinate with others to code and program a game without actually being together is a goddamn nightmare. Games aren't $40 paintings that you could become too lazy to finish till you have 4 hours left till your deadline. That being said, that doesn't excuse how bad SS4 is.
or maybe that way they could get more time for the console versions. think about it, they get the stadia money to finish the game and once a new year of extra time has passed, the complete game is delivered to at least some people. Let's hope so at the very least, I would hate this to be the last serious sam game when it seems that there are many things that seem unpolished ideas instead of directly bad ones/ broken implementation
Stadia is great and i don't think it's their fault if the game is like this.. i mean. Even if people see stadia as a bad platform, it doesn't mean that it's a place where they put bad games just to find excuses.. I own it and have more fun with the games in general than my ps4 slim. The developers made errors, stadia or not stadia, it's their fault
@@newdraftanimations stadia Is shit, how can u give Money to Google, After all the shit they do... Stick at least to a console, or Better buy a good pc
I honestly am not surprised at all about how it turned out. To me, even Serious Sam 3 was a downright depressing game to play just because of the design choices and gameplay. One of the worst games I've ever played.
@Stix N' Stones Well, for me it was THAT bad. Guess I'm not used to playing bad games. I'm being serious. I dislike it that much because it actually created bad memories, lol.
I couldn't disagree more. Compared to Serious Sam 3 I think Serious Sam 4 is an overall improvement. I much prefer the colorful aesthetics, the varied locals compared to the bombed out cities and the domination of shades of brown. Only thing I wish for is for Croteam to drop Sam's military buddies, I care more about the Gnaars I'm chainsawing than I do about what's-their-faces.
>"If you're not using classic skins in Zoom Eternal - you're dead to me" >Never bothers to set classic enemy health counter in SS4. >Plays on tourist Soyman lives
@Брандон Кeллeр Absolute bullshit, game design decisions are the major problem not number of people worked on this garbage. They clearly learned nothing from their previous mistakes. The fact that they tried to bite off more than they can chew is smallest of their mistakes. Every single game gets worse and worse and they don't listen their fans.
"I don't wanna say it's a broken game. I was able to play it from start to finish." Really? Is that the bar we're setting now-a-days? I guess, by that logic, Fallout 76 isn't broken either.
Maybe I'll sound like a blind fanboy, but watching the review before playing it myself, then playing the first 3 levels for myself and so far... I am actually enjoying Serious Sam 4, quite a great deal in fact. I noticed some jank here and there, but the gunplay is better than ever. Maybe it gets worse later in the campaign? I don't know. But so far,, the gameplay has more than enough to keep me engaged. I'll return to this comment once I get farther in the campaign
A russian streamer found HUGE(might even be artificially generated) out of bounds area that isn't used anywhere in the game, seems like they were trying to make an open world.
This was evident in Serious Sam BFE from 2011 too. They tried to make a modern military shooter so the first few hours of the game take place in some war-ravaged urban environments that were suitable for another COD MW game. Well ok they made the assets so why not use them, but these assets do not match with SS theme at all. Same with those massive open world areas that contain nothing. It looks like something out of BeamNG.drive. They were trying to make an open world racing sim or sth? Idk.
9:30 In the previous games (atleast TFE AND TSE anyway) the crosshair would change color depending on enemies health, but still, DOOM Eternal proved that you don't need health bars, just good damage models, even if plasma rifle's microwave beam kinda shows a health bar.
This is the second health option in this game, first one being the health bars, second being crosshair colour and the third is not showing enemy health at all. I chose second because that’s how it was in TFE and TSE
As much as I didn't want this to be the case, I'm not really surprised. When you take a game and make it's usp "thousands of enemy on screen at once" that comes with a whole host of problems that not even AAA developers would be able to manage effectively like performance and level design time. It's sad because serious sam fundamentally has a very solid loop and concept but the need to go above one upping that seems to be fundemental to a lot of the problems from what I can see. It obviously doesn't help as well that Croteam is a dev who's historically suffered with development issues such as serious sam 3 effectively being built off of another game or just making odd design choices. It's sad but it's a cacophony of issues stacked against them on this one.
EDF has done that even in the ps2 with great result, now they are aiming even more with edf 6 and edf 5 , look for gameplay and you are going to see more than 300 enemies on screen
Two people have mentioned EDF and dynasty warriors. I'm going to add with: samurai warriors, warriors orochi, dawn of war, ninety nine nights and many more. It's not a struggle to put hundreds or thousands of enemies on a screen at one time whatsoever
@@just-fun-stuff6753 was more thinking the one just called turok (360 game i think), where he is some marine in a jungle with no interesting guns and no interesting enemies.
@@Meteorlink The only thing I like about Turok 2008 is the Dinosaur designs since those designs were the best designs at the time (atleast in my opinion).
@Subi_fan I mean, if the girl resembles California, it doesn't make Croteam in the wrong here, since that's what California is, well, even worse actually but anyway.
@Subi_fan actually, it the opposite. They do what they do for the fans and tries to do the best they can. Stop judging superficially. And do you think a team like croteam in a game like serous sam they care about this things? Think more.
As someone from Croatia and seeing this stuff firsthand visiting an annual gaming convention we have i can explain a bit from my perspective why this keeps hapening. Our small gaming industry is plagued with devs being up their own asses and shortminded penny pinching, everyone just thinks about how will they make profit without thinking about the actuall product resulting in alot of studios doing mobile garbage, when it comes to actuall games released speaking with devs they are super stuck up saying they invent genres and stuff and when the product gets released it gets bombed to oblivion with bad reviews IF they even do over the years i have seen hundreds of games come and go without ever being mentioned again plus we are behind with trends like at least five years. There you go combine all of that and you get an abundance of at best mediocre games but it's sad to see because this and scum is the best Croatian gaming has to offer and it turned out pretty crappy. Have a nice day everyone.
@@saisameer8771 Bad in what sense? The game was released in a bad state, but the gameplay itself is fantastic, one of the best Serious Sam ever released and the best FPS I've played in recent years. Pure action and fun. Just out of curiosity, did you form your opinion that the game is bad playing for hours or watching the video of a casual noob like GManLives?
@@saisameer8771 3 was a pretty crap detour from the Serious Sam experience as it were. So no, Croteam has now messed up 2 games within the same franchise in a row. Sure they can fix it somewhat in post...but isnt that something we look down upon when done by Activision and EA?
@@saisameer8771 i think its unfair to form your opinion on two reviews, i was the same as you but i also heard good things from other people so i bought it myself to see if it was really that bad and to refund it before my 3 hours on steam if it was and honestly, aside from the legion system which is a total lie and the optimization i actually like it a lot, more so than BFE. dual wielding is a great mechanic, i havent run into any major graphical bugs and even running the game on low settings cause my rig is shit i think it looks really good, and the carcassonne chapter with the castle on the hill is probably one of the best levels in the series.
THIS! I liked Talos and now I saw the same textures and assets just re-arranged to whole levels. Talos with guns. Really strange... its all quite a sad story
I was hoping that they didn't rush this game, THEY said it wasn't rushed. In the end i can't believe they released the game in this state, cause croteam i know doesn't release raw ass game.
I thought it would be good. But then again I just saw screenshots ½ year ago. As soon as I saw some gameplay a few weeks ago, I could see that it looked bland.
@@ahmetkaraosman7509 I still want the game, but will give it some time to fix bugs, and a sale. They really should go back to the style of serious sam 2. That was a great coop game.
i just finished the entire thing with 3 buddies via coop and never saw any of these flaws/glitches/bugs. was flawless from beginning to end. so much fun! had a blast
Seems like Gman says alot of awesome games are "subpar" that are actually good games!!! I usually play the ones he doesn't like and have a blast myself. I am playing this game in 2022 and its awesome!!!
Know you sarcastic, but that seems to be what most game devs/ publishers think gamers want in all of their games. Cause that literally is 75% of games these days 😭
@A Drunk Giraffe I will say, day one I had some really bad stability issues on my rig, but since the most recent update for the game, stability has been improved MASSIVELY, and I experience little to no frame drops or texture pop in. As for the game itself, I've only done 3 missions, but it seems pretty good so far. Cheesy, but that's to be expected :p.
@@mmmmmmm3246 He's entitled to whatever opinion he wants. I just don't trust him as much as I used to given how he kind of seems to focus on negativity to a fault in some cases. For reference, in his Ion maiden review he called the game's arsenal bland and uninspired, making the whole experience feel underwhelming. Yet he also neglected to mention any of the weapon's alt fire modes; seemingly implying he didn't know they were there at all. It gives me the impression he was so prepared to have a contrarian, negative take he didn't even give it a fair chance.
Yeah... I'll be replaying First and Second Encounters and even Serious Sam 2 rather than playing this mess. I hope they can stop making prequels with boring mechanics and come back to the glory of original games.
Seriously bro! The franchise needs to go back to it's roots with its cartoony style. I actually triggered few SS4 fanboys because i said the game sucked lol
Why are you inferring SS2 is an inferior game to SS1? I don't get why so many people hold SS1 so much higher than SS2. Imo SS2 was a step up from SS1. Even has a secret sexy bush.
@@TheMrTape SS2 has some issues with how it was designed. Like I play SS games on Serious difficulty and in SS2 it's very easy compared to other titles. And the life system limits the need to be worried about staying alive and saving the game. Some people say it's too goofy or too cartoonish but this didn't bother me much. It's not a bad game but it is a weird Serious Sam game.
@@gnolex86 Fair enough, I can understand that. I never played the SS games on serious difficulty as far as I recall, was just playing casual for the goofy experience, so never felt the difference in difficulty. Ty for answering.
Moment when they decided to go with mores "serious" theme was the moment SS died to me. Like first two encounters were a perfect balance between being serious and having a comical reliefs here and there. SS2 went a little too far and literally became a comic, but it was still a good game. My look at this is as follows: They wanted to create next Doom so badly, that when their idea was scrapped, instead of going forward and live with it, they decided to do it anyway over and over just to, idk, prove to somebody they are capable of doing modern military shooters. Poor design, poor choices, making everything too serious for sake of being "modern"... nah Sam is dead. I was affraid SS4 might be a disaster because they kept that SS3 look, but it is still painful to watch considering i was a big fan of first entires :(
If you haven't had the chance yet, you should try your best to get your hands onto the original Xbox version of Serious Sam. It's the best possible version you can play imo. First and second encounters combined, weapons from both strewn throughout all the levels, serious bombs, the best cartoon version of the artstyle, and added cutscenes that fit in pretty well
@@netherwolf3012 Indeed, "realistic" ones are plain and forgettable. Cartoonish graphics will be remembered for a long time and will age way, way better.
@@auroriasolaris Yeah, even if overdone. Especially now, with all the bland shooters it doesn't even take that much to really stand out. Not as bad as the late 2000 and early 2010 though.
this could have been another doom 2016 but it didn’t have the same baking time looks like needed another 7 year minimum. They spent all their time on the game engine i think and not enough time on the actual game.
But it looks almost completely the same as Sam 3. So, I don't know what the fuck they were doing. Covid certainly didn't cause this much trouble to development, so what did they plan to originally launch in 2019?
Talos principle happened. Croteam said it themselves, talos principle was them taking experiments for SS4 way too far and made it into a full game + expansion.
@@HenriTheHammer I could not agree more. This is a prime example of the publishers not understanding the strengths of a franchise (ex: Fallout 76), that of a dev team (ME Andromeda, Anthem), or what the gamers are looking for (pretty much all the games we're pissed about).
The first two games were amazing, and I still play them. Personally, I think the Second Encounter is Serious Sam at his best overall. It's a shame this is so sloppy. I think things went downhill for Sam a long time ago, mostly when they started introducing other characters and trying to add depth to the story. They tried to make him too "serious," and in doing so, just made him and his friends look dumb. The cheesy one-liners make way more sense when it's just a tough, angry joker against hordes of aliens and monsters. I just wish modern developers could understand what made games great back then. It was the essence, not the details - and the deeper you go into detail, the deeper you're forced to go, in a never-ending cycle of exhausted expectations. Keep it simple, yet amazing. Stick to Sam's fundamental appeal, and don't bother with the needless fluff. We didn't play it back then for fluff, and we aren't now either. Still, this game does look like fun, and I'm not hating.
Game is much better than SS3 in everything that matters. People forget that SS3 also was this janky when it was released, it just got patched to hell and back over the years.
I never ran into any of the bugs Im seeing and I actually had a decent amount of fun with it. Certainly not in my top 5 and probably not in my top 10 but not the worst shooter I've played by a long shot. I had to take a break cause story mode was pretty long and getting more and more depressing but eh, I liked it enough. I also played it early 2023 not 2020.
damn. i preordered the game, but I'm going to refund it. maybe ill buy it again in the future when they (hopefully) patch most of this and put the game on sale. thanks for the review
@@razvanmazilu6284 i am still able to get a refund, so what's your point exactly? i can buy the game and play for 2 hours and if i don't like it i can refund it. there's no risk and you can refund it at anytime before the game releases anyways. they had some bonuses that's why I did it to begin with
I do think this game looks generic and less interesting than the older titles. This trend was started on Sam 3. I thought that one looked fairly generic but the engine was impressive at the time. The PC version has some awesome particle effects. I am hoping they patch this and finish it.
Wanted to say the same i mean for me the pinnacle was Second Encounter, the later levels were great and creative, many jump pads or fighting up-side down etc. But i cant understand why they are thinking yea just scrap these environments and take real life bland COD shit -.-'
3 was cobbled together from a modern military shooter they were going to make and some assets from a Doom game they pitched (hence the obvious mancubus and baron of hell enemies), so at least some of that genericness made sense, and I did still enjoy it once it got going. I just wish they'd let you have more time with that jetpack from the end. I really got the impression this was one they had their heart in from the start, and were wanting to make as a Serious Sam game from the getgo. But...I guess not. The older games really just wholesale look better than this, even 3 did more interesting visually. And the fact that they basically never use that Legion system they touted so much? Absolutely disappointing.
@@FoxDie77777 I really like 2nd Encounter. I didn't like SS2 when it first came out because of the art style change. Once I played it I thought it was amazing. There is a lot of value in that game. The art style is kind of cartoony but I noticed a lot of detail and some amazing visuals later in the game.
