Serious Sam 4 - 2020's Most Underrated Game

[@adramalihk3307]

You know what's funny? While game journalists criticise Serious Sam 4 for being too similar to older titles and playing almost exactly like classic Sam, "hardcore" fans on Reddit and Steam forums criticise SS4 for being too different from other Serious Sam games and playing not like classic Sam at all.

[@doompenguin7453]

To me, it feels like the old Serious Sam games. Sure, you have stupid things like reloading and a skill tree, but you can mod those out of the game and I like the sprint and dual wielding. Dual wielding allows you to take on even more enemies and what's more Serious Sam than fighting more enemies? I don't consider myself a hardcore Serious Sam player. I played the First and Second Encounter and Serious Sam 2 a lot back in the day and pretty much abandoned the series after 3 and now, 4 brought me back. I don't really play the HD encounters and 4 any differently. The core mechanics feel the same to me.

[@Onox792]

SS4 is for me the second best game in the franchise (to this day nothing beats the second encounter in my opinion), sure, there are a few bugs here and there and the character animations during the cutscenes may not be done by a AAA company, but I had a blast playing it.

[@bitethebullettooth]

@@Onox792 Same fore me. I'd say it's far from the best in terms of locations, but it has easily the best gunplay and combat loop in the whole series. I also found it to be perfectly playable without a crosshair, which to me is way more badass. You can tell when you're aiming at an enemy because their HP bar pops up.

[@twilightsparkle2764]

@@doompenguin7453 A little late to the party, but you can still cancel the reloading by press r then simply switch to another weapon. After the reloading time is over, you can switch back, and the reload have complete!

[@Beaut_Beau]

Just spent 22 glorious hours playing through the game on my series x and getting all the achievements, so much bloody fun!

[@andrewmiller7671]

Same. Gonna buy the dlc siberian nightmare tm to continue the story, cant wait.

[@Vengeance289]

I think the problem with SS4 is that it came out on the same year as Doom eternal, which set the bar ridiculously high.

[@ashhabimran239]

And Serious Sam 3 had the opposite situation, it was released in the same year as Duke Nukem Forever

[@JV-ll1cu]

I like SS4 more than DE

[@DrunkenRhinoceros]

I've been a fan since Serious Sam first released many years ago. It's stayed true to form, and it's a good formula. I do think a little more of a budget and a graphics overhaul could do wonders for this franchise. Serious sam 4 delivers what the games has always provided....Chaos and a bullet hell FPS experience. The 4th entry is just as fun as its predecessors. It would be awesome to see Croteam adopt Unreal engine 5 for the 5th entry. Gamers gravitate to eye candy, and games like this and Duke Nukem really nail the silly fun FPS experience.

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.

[@adramalihk3307]

Serious Sam 4 actually has dynamic music system, there are two tracks for each level, peace and fight, those tracks change when fight starts and ends, that being said, this type of dynamic music was used in all Serious Sams. Fun Fact: There actually is a new dynamic music system implemented in-game, but it was developed pretty late, so Damjan Mravunac wasn't able to compose more tracks for it and this new system was scrapped. You can turn it on in the Serious Editor, but nobody knows how to actually use it yet.

[@doompenguin7453]

I don't consider transitioning between 2 tracks to be a dynamic music system. In Devil May Cry 5 and DOOM 2016 which part of the combat track plays changes in real time depending on how well or poorly you are doing in combat which is not the case in Serious Sam 4 where the combat track just loops in the background. I'm kind of curious about the new music system that was scrapped though, I hope modders can make some use of it in the future.

[@PavlovYT]

@@doompenguin7453 As far as I understood from the Serious Editor entries, every enemy on the map would have what I call "Danger Points". Small enemies would have 1 point, medium would have 2, large have 3 and so on. The more points there are overall on the map at any time, the heavier the music would get. This IS a theory, but there are some cut songs that were shared: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4W7aYOZidmmbZY Peace would probably be used when there was no enemies, tension when 1-10 danger points, normal when 10-20 and so on. Simple system but it would be indeed, dynamic.

[@xay6460]

sounds like literally every single game ever made lol when you aren’t in combat there’s peaceful music but when u are in combat it changes like duh lol

[@JohnSavant]

When Skill-Up said that SS4 fails to be modern or shit like that ... and then proceeded to show a clip of a Call of Duty single-player campaign, implying SS4 is inferior because it's not Call of Duty ... let's just say I'll never take that guy seriously ever again, he's dead to me.

[@Vloog95]

Thank you for the info. It made me laugh to hear such a nonsense, "inferior cuzz its not Call of Duty" LOL Serious Sam is good at being Serious Sam not Soldier forget its name from COD

[@Reloaded2111]

That was when I unsubscribed from his channel. Same about GmanLives. Damn, that review was ridiculous, full of complaints and nitpicking. Old gameplay? What game has rocket-propelled chainsaws, portable black holes and mini-nukes? Please do tell me, I'd like to play it.

[@doomslayer9513]

@@Reloaded2111 I did the same, unsubscribed to that SJW woke asshole and will never watch him again.

[@tokresaliali3805]

That piece of shit also said DMC5 has no replay value.

[@wleon4068]

You either love Serious Sam or you hate it. There's no in-between. I, personally, love it. I have the First and Second Encounters too. This one, compares to those two.

[@thematt6478]

I think this is the best FPS I've ever played

[@BobMcBurger1]

I started playing it a few days ago. And so far, I’m enjoying every moment. Although I disagree with your point on reloading and partially on the skill tree. Reloading to me I'm perfectly fine with and it should stay. As things stand, it likely will. Since blasting all your guns away with no delay is fun, but would get old fast imo. Since reloading makes you tactically think on your surroundings. Which adds difficulty and realism to the game, which is what I want. Hence why I personally prefer 3 and onwards. Due to the modern look of weapons etc. As for the skill tree, yes it is annoying that things are locked away. When it should all be available to the player. But that however makes things too easy. The whole premise of a skill tree is you progress, unlock points and get stronger. Whilst the difficulty increases with you.

[@farzin4947]

I only had 2 problems with the game: 1-level Design (i missed Second encounter's levels) 2-that 100000 enemies on screen thing they Advertised

[@MarioUhhhh]

About a billion you mean?

[@sonictheblueknigth]

This was my favourite game of last year, it was such a fun experience

[@stevekjr9563]

Game Journalist: "Serious Sam needs to update its gameplay by turning more in to 3rd-person cover-shooter with an emphasis on cinematic cut scenes and set pieces..."

[@ananmaysahu4563]

turn everything into outriders, bsically.

[@TheBeansprout]

The small full auto roast made me laugh

[@JunayedMahin]

I loved the game.. And honestly its a big game made by a small developer. And i love all of em.

[@tacticolty1552]

Personally i don't think the Game looks ugly. I mean it's not Amazing But at least the color palette helps a Lot. I was sick of desert and brown

[@shiki8437]

This game deserve move love for real, some level's design is not as good as old SS but the core gameplay is fun as hell. tbh,even you don't like SS4,you can't deny the soundtrack is really really good.

[@SMK_Mehmet]

Serious sam is a really great game. Just start the game. dont think too much and start shooting.

[@raptordan166]

I wish they took this technology to make a game that wasn't a prequel. The military influence outstayed its welcome, and I wish we just spent more time visiting abstract and alien planets instead of Earth.

[@Neon_Henchman]

I genuinely think the Reloading ADDS something to Serious Sam; in SS3, I would oftentime use the Assault Rifle on the Beheadeds and Grunts, and on occasion enemies that can become threats at Medium-Range such as Kleers and Hatchlings, as I may've little ways of one-shoting them if I'm going to be overwhelmed by meatshields (Gnaars). Furthermore, I would have to find a specific moment to reload it, during the middle of Firefights, and so I always was conscious of my inventory at all times, which is hardly something I get in other games, and so I thought it was exciting that way. Plus the Devastator would've been broken if it had an infinite clip, which on the offset for the goal of balance, it would make its use as a rapid explosive weapons or as a last resort in a tight corner maybe completely revamped and make it about as useless against moving faraway targets as the Rocket Launcher, like I don't know how it could've been balanced any other way. Serious Sam 3 is my favorite of the Sam games, maybe specifically for its gameplay (AND at least so far); I prefer TFE as a whole, but I thought SS3 added a bunch of Tech that was as simple to grasp as the Classic games, they didn't had to add quest markers and an intricate, annoying-looking cover system à-la Nathan Drake. Like that's the thing, SS3 may be as deadbeat easy to play as the Classics, and you can stick to the Classic formula since it still works, but if you pour time into it, you can REALLY appreciate the Tech behind it, like the C4s could one-shot most of the biggest baddies, but that was if you got close enough to them to latch it onto their bodies, which by that logic, the game heavily rewards your recklessness, which fits perfectly with the usual Serious Sam Formula, I relish it. I thought I hated SS3 for 4 years, until I've given it another shot on Serious difficulty, and since then, I may've poured 400 Hours into it, which also counts the Mods that exploited this specific gameplay like on Fusion. I even make videos about it to showcase the insane tech, because I think that was the problem with SS3, is that people got to be made aware first of all of what makes the game so exciting. I did most of my Videos on SS3 in French though, only a few in English, which... well, I'll let you find these yourself since I don't want to give the wrong idea of what the point was of me doing them, but I also am doing an "Infinite Weapons Only Challenge", not public as of yet since I haven't finished it (parts of it is Unlisted, not specifically to remain hidden forever) and it may not corelate too much with the Tech in question like the C4s, but the Sledgehammer and Mutilator are hella fun to use when you get their timing. Oh, but what about SS4? Well I have yet to play much of it, since I'm just replaying SS3 in cycles like my yearly Dark Souls runs, and I think SS3 is criminally underrated so I wanted to share its fun aspects beforehand, but so far, if SS4 stays on the same path as SS3 did, I think it looks hella fun as well.

[@xristaka8199]

Bro i've always said that SS3 was never a bad game but just different.

[@Neon_Henchman]

@@xristaka8199 I also think SS3 has the best narrative, which is not to say it has a lot of, but it's non-intrusive; if you paid attention to the graffitis, you learn Sam is at fault for waking up Mental, and I thought it made the character so much more epic for fighting the alien hordes alone, and then back in time, to atone for what he has done, like I thought that was some heavy stuff, and you could tell it was heavy on his mind too near the end. They actually managed to make an already established character even more epic than they were.

[@xristaka8199]

@@Neon_Henchman This just fuels the tension in The Guardian of Time.Not only are Sam's friends dead but he is the one who caused it to them.

[@ashhabimran239]

Fellow BFE enjoyers...noice

[@steelzepplin2012]

Serious Sam is what I started playing when I got into PC gaming, this game does the series justice, I love it so much!

[@torinsmith9867]

This review prompted me to buy this game. I loved it! Definitely a great FPS.

[@Miki-hk6vy]

If only it was better optimised so I could play it on my 2GB Vram laptop, well hope over time it gets better

[@xristaka8199]

@@Miki-hk6vy They fixed most of the problems like the game doesn't drop from 100 to 50 fps anymore and most of the levels run just fine and the bugs are fixed

[@HatPeasyCat]

Finaly a review that speaks truth about this game ;p

[@ceoofsociety5382]

Damn the gameplay does look very good

[@doompenguin7453]

Yeah, the gameplay is very fun. This game also has official mod support so you can have ridiculous things like 11x enemy multipliers and custom user made levels so you are getting a lot of content with this game.

[@amspook]

Hell yeah it is Especially on harder difficulties. The game just throw enemies at you and just said, "It's your problem now".

[@NivalaSlayer]

No it does not, Trust me, it will get very tedious after about 3 hours.

[@NivalaSlayer]

@Narkomancers Some of you are pretty special then if you can just neglect logic just for fun.

[@NivalaSlayer]

@Narkomancers They are special as well

[@fatnug2430]

I loved the game, the only issue i have is with the cutscenes that didn’t play sound(im on ps5) and it’s very frustrating

[@lynxxj]

Serious Sam 4 was the greatest futuristic fps game i ever played tho. Sadly, it was very underrated but i absolutely like it

[@Chilloutandwatchanime]

Try doom eternal

[@SeriousLeo5]

A lifelong fan of the series here, and it's nice seeing some actual love for the game. Ever since it released, i never understood the hate towards SS4. Sure, it has some technical issues, and the level design had its problems, but none of those issues stopped me from thoroughly enjoying the game. Hell, i even consider it to be the best game in the series since The Second Encounter. Siberian Mayhem definitely improved in the level design department, but for me it's optimisation was even worse than 4, especially on the first two levels.

[@doompenguin7453]

For me, SM runs better than SS4 and at higher settings too. I don't play the SS4 and SM as much as the older games in the series because of the massive performance fluctuations, but if SS4 and SM ran as well as SS fusion or DOOM Eternal, they would definitely be my favourite Serious Sam games. I honestly don't know why Croteam never made an attempt to patch the performance issues and just left the game as is.

[@evilotis01]

"a minigun-wielding Italian grandma" OK i'm sold

[@torinsmith9867]

Excellent review, It's on my wishlist now.

[@terriblecertainity]

I think, Sam has an identity crisis since part 3. It tries to implement modern mechanics like reloeading and upgrades that don't fit at all into an old school shooter. In Sam 4, the worst aspect to me is the level design. They tried to create realistic environments instead of fun arenas. The result: Tons of big fights feel cluttered. You get stuck on trees and benches while fighting, might not have enough space to maneuver or encounter tons of empty spaces that serve no purpose. It's still a good game, but is very flawed. Whoever thinks that the gameplay is too old school havent played much old school shooter imho

[@soyunbonus]

Totally agree. The don't seem to know where to go with this franchise.

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it, and it doesn't have any identity crisis bullshit! It's the best Serious Sam game I played, take off your nostalgia glasses and play this game on the PS5!

[@doompenguin7453]

Make sure to use headphones of some kind or decent speakers because the background music is not audible on the built in smartphone or tablet speakers.

[@Curt_Randall]

I think this convinced me to finally buy the game. Well this, and the fact it is half price at $20 on Steam right now.

[@CasperReacts0336]

Ha jokes on you, it’s free on Gamepass now!

[@kylekomicbro1836]

20 bucks American maybe

[@matt.o.nutz3dnutz930]

ss4 is a ass kicking old school shooter a love it , my XSS love it to seriously

[@metehanaydemir2540]

I agree most of your opinion but skill tree and reloading are fine in my book. Also there is two skill point that fasters reloads and after you reload weapon shots faster. It is too bad that this video won't be noticed yet bat blind doom fanboys will talk shit about it.

[@supranomicon]

Great review thanks, loving playing this currently. Agree seems silly to criticise it for being true to serious sams in the past!

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.

[@TeryonTheHuman]

Reloading in serious sam is fine, and should stay. You actually have to think, swap weapons when you’re in a bad spot and adapt to your ammo count. Add in the fact that levels are more cluttered instead of empty now and you really have to be paying attention to succeed. Sure as hell beats turning your brain off and just holding down the fire button while moving backwards like the old games let you do.

[@andrej177]

The ss4 super shotgun is one of my favs

[@Dondlo46]

Serious Sam 2 is also underrated, its so massive (and cartoony)

[@thegameboyshow]

Plus the new update allowed dual wielding too

[@samwich3972]

i agree. i liked it a lot more visually, with all the colourfull environments you dont see in fps very often. wish they wouldve continued with that instead of whatever serious sam 3 was

[@elshamaro4658]

@@samwich3972 SS2 was garbage. It looked great, but everything else was horrible. SS3 was the right choice. I could have been more colourful, but it was better in everything else. And that’s why it’s a better game.

[@KevinLucifer]

You're a genius! Took the words right out of my mouth, I love this review, right on. I'm about to get a Xbox Series X and I am hoping to get this game and if possible the first encounter hd, if they make it for series x, I'm about to check that out. Last time I played a Serious Sam game, it was first encounter. Thanks for this review, I subscribed to you, you do this game a justice. I saw the ign review and didn't like it lol. It's supposed to be dated is what I think, that is the fun part.

[@opinali]

I don't have as big problem with the design of the graphic assets, but IMO the graphics *code* is a more important weak point. Noticeable texture pop-in, inexistent atmospheric effects to render stuff at long distance such as distance fog / atmospheric scattering (SS4 levels are mostly very open terrains), make very fast turns and even straight running visually bad and this is a problem in a game where combat means you're running and circle-strafing like a monkey on ecstasy if you want to stay alive. Still a lot of fun, but could improve significantly if the team would just use something like Unreal instead of insisting to write their own engine while not having the resources to do a first rate job on that. You can also see that the game is only playable on DX11, there is a choice to pick DX12 or Vulkan but both have terrible performance, at least on my lowly 580 XT 8G.

[@SeriousAmaro]

Interesting how I tend to like the things that you hated (skill tree, reloading) and underappreciated the things you liked (dual wielding, gadgets, bosses, vehicles) but the result is still the same: this game is amazing and severely underrated

[@Yukari_MAiG]

Always love the series, the game doesn't disappoint. I have some of the most fun time since the 2nd encounter.

[@briancampbell7454]

I like dual guns and combat. Only bad in this game is big levels, there is some empty parts with only running.

[@yukixxl]

Would you do review on Serious Sam: Next Encounter? That game is fun like XBOX version of classics but a bit faster paced and with a bit improved gameplay, in my opinion.

[@sherlockhighland8292]

Haven't played this game before, but I gotta say the soundtrack is just amazing, as memorable as doom eternal soundtrack

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and I am blown away! The gameplay is extremely fun! 10/10 for me lol

[@ivangljivan4778]

love all serious sam games. grew up with them. devs r from croatia just like me so i loved finding all the secrets and croat easter eggs. I still have nightmares from those giant monster fish. I remember i used to turn volume to lowest possible and close my eyes almost completely. was so spooked of them lol. kinda still am tho. watery depths r scary af irl as well. kinda weird tho since i loved to dive deep in the oceans and lakes. now my ears hurt like heck even after a meter only

[@thewanderingstruggler8601]

My only complaint is they should take after the artstyle seen in Serious Sam Xbox, Next Encounter, and 2. As in, a slightly stylized almost comic-book looking graphical artstyle that’s fun and quirky and fits the series like a glove. The new artstyle I argue is too realistic for Serious Sam and just doesn’t mesh well tbh. I’ll still play SS4 when I get it for the console, but I’m like what? 😂😅 and I grew up with the OG Serious Sam on PC and the original Xbox version which I played on my 360.

[@rayclark9643]

Nice informative review...thanks for your honest insight into this game...it's on sale now & I was on the fence about purchasing it due to all of the negative reviews, but will now give it a try for myself:)

[@ashhabimran239]

Really good review. Like some of the more recent comments, I disagree with your complaints on reloading and the skill tree. I never had an issue with it in BFE, and I don't now. If anything, it adds an interesting layer of challenge to the formula imo. As for the skill tree, it's not bad, but could be improved upon

[@DethHead28]

I think the assault rifle should have reloading, but later on it should get an upgrade that makes you lose reloading entirely. Or Sam loses the assault rifle but later on finds an alien gun that acts similarly to the assault rifle but no reloading. Good review man, this game is far from perfect but it's fun and great. The skill tree isn't also the best, but hopefully Croteam learns from their mistakes.

[@Tolly1974]

I agree with you completely. The reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about. This game is brill I love it

[@amspook]

The only critics I have on the game is that its poor optimization issue. I even wait until early January to play it. Even then, some problem still persist. Once you can handle that, it's just pure gameplay. The best gameplay on SS series. Dual Wield is godsend, music is crafted from heavens, the enemy, despite scary looking, all have shootable faces.

[@karentuk7664]

The full auto is also underrated

[@Name-yd8es]

True

[@avalqnche]

No

[@karentuk7664]

@@avalqnche it is underated

[@vrabo3026]

Seriously. Every single playthrough I watched of people playing the game, they straight up never use it. Same with the LIFE gadgets. They horde the fuck out of them and never ever use them, even when they're running around with 5 HP.

[@MindinViolet]

I agree with your point about skill trees. Not everything has to be an RPG!

[@KrazyKain]

the graphics look bad up close but there's no denying the large scale battles with lasers flying everywhere look freaking epic. Thanks for the review, I've seen enough people shit on this game so its nice to see one to get my excited for it. I'm playing through all the others in co-op, just finished 2 (after first and second encounter) so we're going through 3 and then finally will be moving on to this game, the only one I haven't played before :)

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.

[@VanTemplar]

2:46 "Dad Jokes" were called just "jokes" back in the day. Gawd damn I'm getting old ... #BoomerProblems

[@DrBackshotsV2]

I think that most people forget that croteam are indie devs and not a triple aaa studio because the game is a fps most people have higher expectations i think the games amazing ngl

[@stiefn3825]

6:09 Is the Talos Principle Chant the original in game music or did you edit it in?

[@doompenguin7453]

Original.

[@anonymousgaming5212]

I will give it a try, just bought it....

[@sane-indxultra7690]

2:55 is that Tyler The Creator's dad from The Eric Andre Show? 😂👌🏼

[@FredericEllsworth104]

TBH Serious Sam 4 really looks amazing, from both gameplay and visuals. It's still less buggy than Cyberpunk 2077 and definitely WAY better than Halo 5. It's nice to see someone actually praise this game for once.

[@egorsergeevichmelnikov1542]

Thank you for telling about one of the greatest shooters of all time. It is really underrated.

[@ItssGabriel]

1:57 But it's called serius sam! LoL

[@v.two7436]

Nice review man

[@TheRama2299]

It's quite strange that people criticize the gameplay itself for being outdated. I've seen people criticize design choices and bugs throughout the game, which is totally fair, but criticizing this series' gameplay is like criticizing ice cream for being too cold

[@jacobclements1582]

I agree and bought this game day one nough said

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.

[@doomslayer9513]

I highly disagree about your view of the skill tree! It does enhance the gameplay in many ways and allows customization of the gameplay in each playthrough, sometimes I like to play the whole game without getting any skill just to make the game more challenging for me (like I did in Dishonored), and that adds reply value to the game. I just bought this game on PS5 and I am loving it to death this far! I love the style of graphics and the game is just as much fun to me as Doom Eternal, both are my favorite shooters of all time. The PS5 version does suffer from few frame drops here and there, but I am not gonna netpicking asshole and will trust the developers to fix this awesome game eventually on consoles, also the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds.

[@doompenguin7453]

Sorry to tell you this, but Croteam will not fix the performance issues. The game run terribly on super high-end gaming rigs to this day, and they have done nothing about it, don't expect them to treat the PS5 version any differently, what you have now is what you get.

[@doomslayer9513]

@@doompenguin7453 I hope you're wrong, but we shall see 👍

[@doomslayer9513]

@@doompenguin7453 It seems we are going to get a DLC for this game after all, that's an early sign that you're wrong about what you said "hopefully"😅 Also I watched lots of videos of the gameplay of this game on PC, and I can assure you that it runs and looks so much better on the PS5, especially after turning the saturation all the way up in the options menu. Maybe you should do a review of that version to confirm for yourself, not once did the performance on PS5 bothered me, I barely even notice it. Have a good day 👍

[@doompenguin7453]

@@doomslayer9513 I have not heard anything about a DLC, I need to look it up. Also, you need to consider that "good performance" means completely different things on PC. On console, locked 60 fps is considered good performance, while on PC it's barely passable. This game is poorly optimized because it uses like 50% of my GPU most of the time. A well optimized game, e.g. DOOM Eternal, will always max out the GPU to push as many frames as possible. Basically, as a PC player, I'm annoyed that the game drops to like 80FPS at 1440p in big fights while my GPU is taking a nap. I have a 144Hz screen and having a nice locked 144fps feels super smooth and game like Serious Sam are a lot more enjoyable at higher refresh rates.

[@doomslayer9513]

@@doompenguin7453 I don't mind playing games at 60 FPS for the rest of my life probably lol, I am a 90s guy I used to play Quake 2 back in the day at 20 FPS 😅

[@sydney_pepper]

I personally really disagree about the soundtrack. I think only a few tracks should be heavy metal, and I preferred the music in the first 2 encounters because it was fully centered around the percussion. That music always had such great rhythm, and I'm really dissapointed to see it go.

[@astronomica4968]

im 16 years old and I love me some serious action

[@adnanasghar1087]

Then play sekiro and dark souls

[@astronomica4968]

@@adnanasghar1087 No.

[@animeist72]

Would LOVE to play this game on PS5 with adaptive triggers!

[@borisc]

Fair review.

[@gospodin338]

I see you haven't talked about mods that were added in the latest update. Some guy made the Dunes map as a mod and you should see the frame rate in that, it's like a 4 times performance increase

[@doompenguin7453]

Yeah, because Dunes, like pretty much all the older levels, is mostly just a lot of flat surfaces with performance killers like parallax mapping and foliage being completely absent. It makes sense for that map to have stupidly high fps.

[@Tuckdragon]

amid evil and the darkness allows u to summon black holes.

[@carloss7655]

personally a game where all you do is circle-strafe and/or back up and shoot doesnt sound exciting to me. and the battlefield looks completely flat with no verticality which I also dont like. It looks fun enough, but I can see where their criticism of the gameplay feeling outdated is coming from.

[@doompenguin7453]

Fair enough. I personally like Serious Sam's combat loop where an overwhelming number of enemies spawn in and you initially get forced back but as you thin the heard, you push forward until you hit the next enemy spawn trigger which make for exiting back-and-forth dance which is somewhat addictive. Also, there is plenty of verticality in Serious Sam, I just just showed mostly flat arenas in this video because those are the ones where the largest number of enemies spawn. Serious Sam the First and Second encounter have a number of arenas which aren't flat at all and the Second Encounter also has some weird gravity bending arenas. I did mostly show flat arenas because that's what I like the most but Serious Sam levels have more than that to offer.

[@jimit.4220]

@@Nonesovile96 People get that this is the origin, but it's 2021, games evolve for a reason. What was considered revolutionary back in the 90s, is now often outdated, clunky, cryptic and simplistic.

[@adramalihk3307]

@@jimit.4220 Serious Sam was always a throwaback into the past. Even in 2001, when the first game came out, Half-Life was already around, and Doom-like shooters were dying, and Sam is practically reanimated them. Now, when "Old School" shooters like Doom Eternal move further from what they were (Doom Eternal is a great game, but is definetly isn't the same Doom, same with Shadow Warrior 2 & 3), Serious Sam throws you back and shows you how it was back then. It is a perfect option to just play when you are tired and bored or if you don't like new games. Of course Serious Sam still tries to evolve, this is why things like gadgets, dual-wielding, enemy-riding. sidequests, mechs and other vehicles were added, so a lot of oldfags or conservative players hate SS4 for being casual, modern and complex (which it isn't btw).

[@ivangljivan4778]

U dont just strafe or backpeddal or u die. U need to chnage directions to avoid charging enemies and projectiles and often go forwards a bit here and there to avoid big clusters of fast targets or cloud of projectiles. there isn't too much verticality since you are borbaded by hundreds of enemies at time and have to constantly aim to get as many as fast as you can and therefore cant be bothered with parkouring even if there was huge double jump tech and such, altho older titles had verticality at times. plus you have flying enemies at times so flat ground helps with aim. serious sam is and will always be one of most fun shooters. you have to play some older titles to get it.

[@ahmetuckardes59]

Completely just agree holding the left click and circle strafing sounds boring i wanted to give a chance to serious sam 2 and it was extremely boring imo seripus sam 4 looks same too

[@michaelhowarth8331]

Don’t have time to focus on those graphics when you are shooting.

[@bhopirl4552]

5:29 haha you can be a mancubis in this game

[@dotcomgamingd5564]

my personal favorite in the series

[@ViolentVista]

I mean to be honest if they went cartoony with the artstyle like Serious Sam 2 it probably would've been reviewed better

[@xristaka8199]

As much as i remember IGN gave SS2 6.5 back then coz of its cartoonish style

[@Headspr0uter]

the clips you used did not convince me on the dialogue lol although i definitely agree with you on skill trees. ever play killing floor? i think that game is ruined by the fact it has a skill tree because new players start out like such weaklings on top of being inexperienced.

[@frogpuffin]

There is something shiny in SS4 but it's buried under an identity crysis, crappy cutscenes and animations , reused assets that give a cheap feel and so on. But under all that shit there is some great gameplay, when Croteam actually tries to make good arenas to fight in with the awesome weapons.

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.

[@mr.corndog7850]

I got this game on sale and my only complaint is the performance. Frame rate kinda sucks but game still hella fun

[@Antroid]

I have to really disagree about the graphics being "bad" overall. There are some grayer levels after the volcano that look slightly dull, and the indoor environments, cutscenes and a few outdoor areas here and there look bad (like a lot of the french City level and the second to last level with the ice and all), but I actually really enjoyed the vistas that it produces, the landscapes and buildings both. My particular favorites are the last level and Citadel. Despite the varying fidelity and overall way less professional execution, I feel like I had more enjoyment looking at this game than doom eternal (and listening to and playing as well, lol).

[@doompenguin7453]

Compared to anything in Fusion 2017, Sam 4 looks significantly worse. My biggest issue is wit the stupid amount of obvious pop-in of things like vegetation and shadows in this game. It's extremely noticeable an distracting during combat. In game like DOOM Eternal and Even Serious Sam HD and Serious Sam 3 Fusion, you have to really look for things poping into the scene for you to notice any pop-in. The horrible pop-in combined with the extremely unstable frame rate make this game a pain to play some times. I would forgive the pop in if we got DOOM Eternal or Serious Sam 3 Fusion like performance but it's not even close.

[@Antroid]

@@doompenguin7453 Yeah the pop-in was sometimes pretty bad, but I think for me some places in sam4 far outshine anything in fusion. Honestly I prefer the way landscapes look in 4 by a lot, and IMO the city environments only occasionally look worse than 3's because of the lower detail level in some of them. For me the Citadel, the last level, the various italian ruin areas and a bunch of places in other levels look the best SS has ever looked. Also, I've never had trouble with pop-in being distracting during combat, that actually sounds really strange to me - combat is when I stop noticing these things. But hey I also enjoy the addition of reloading to some weapons so different strokes maybe lol

[@tenle168]

they said the game looked outdated look at serious sam 3 they tried to keep up with the modern war genre that was popular at the time and failed so just let serious sam be serious sam

[@eof6270]

Serious Sam 3 was great.

[@jpa3974]

There are several things I don't agree with in the review. 1. Realism has nothing to do with bad graphics. Talos Principle uses the exact same realistic style and basically the same engine, and it is a beautiful game. Serious Sam 4 has some landscapes and ruins that are considerably decent, but overall the game really doesn't look good, probably more because of a lack of polish. The human characters are terrible, but this is only important in the cutscenes. 2. The definition of Serious Sam as a game where you walk backwards and circlestrafing is pretty generic. SS has a very unique gameplay that involves several enemies that are more agile and faster than the protagonist. The question is to know how to prioritize the right enemies in view of your resources to always maintain a viable area of maneuver. This is why the more complex battles in Serious Sam always have that "puzzle" element. Serious Sam 4 has plenty of such situations, but unfortunately the total lack of balance (I blame gimmicks, skilltree and some weapons) makes it very easy for the player to "break" absolutely everything. 3. Reloading the tommygun is a positive addition. I also found it positive that the shotgun no longer needs to be reloaded as in Serious Sam 3. The point is not that "reloading = bad", but that reloading should be used in a balanced way and in the matter of these weapons, Croteam balanced them correctly, in my opinion. Another positive modern addition is "headshots". All fans of the series were probably worried when they heard about headshots but it worked very well in the game. Conclusion: I agree that Serious Sam 4 has a very good gameplay. I also agree that the journalists have no idea what they are talking about. But the game is very rough, even today after so many updates. Some levels do not flow well, some weapons are too powerful (flying chainsaw), the gimmicks instead of adding a strategic factor end up only serving to the player to skip difficult battles, the skilltree gathers from vaguely useful things to things that completely break battles like riding on enemies, etc. It is a game that has the potential to be fantastic, but this potential is not really awakened in most of the campaign. There is always the hope that modders will start creating more balanced and interesting maps, but Serious Editor 4 is a disaster with no documentation at all so I don't hold out much hope.

[@doompenguin7453]

On point 2 - Talos has much smaller environments. The terrible SS4 graphics are a combination of having an engine that's not very well optimised, exesive use of high polygon models when the same results could be achieved with lower poly models and better normal maps, and having environments which are not only big, but packed with enemies, debris, vegetation, etc. The engine can't handle this much stuff going on at a playable frame rate so you have this horrible pop in everywhere as a means of optimisation. The older games didn't have this problem because they had environments which were mostly flat surfaces with flat textures. If you play the Dunes mod for SS4 you will see that it runs extremely well(I get 400-500 fps at 1440p) and that's because you don't have stuff like 100k polygon statues and a ton of vegetation to render. Talos looks good because you don't have to render as much in a single scene so you can have more detailed everything without pop in and horrible performance.

[@evilotis01]

hmmmm so would it be worth bothering w this on an i5-6600k and a 970?

[@doompenguin7453]

You have plenty of graphics settings to tweak so if you set them low enough you should be good(the game will look terrible though).

[@Crit7k]

hey doom penguin ik this is a old vid but how do you run your games with the horizontal bars on the screen?? Is it a widescreen monitor? and if so what monitor is it?

[@doompenguin7453]

The aspect ratio of my old monitor was 21:9 ultrawide, with a resolution of 2560x1080. If you watch a video with this resolution on a standard 16:9 screen, it will display with black bars on the top or bottom.

[@Crit7k]

@@doompenguin7453 Do you know of a way to force horizontal bars on a 16:9 1080p monitor? would i run my resolution at 2560x1080?

[@doompenguin7453]

Force aspect ratio to 21:9 and select whichever is the highest resolution available.

[@Crit7k]

@@doompenguin7453 Thank you :) cinematic borders on serious sam fusion is fun

[@utkarshkumar1106]

game play is good but poorly optimised on launch day i was getting 40 fps and now started playing again i was getting consistent 90 fps .

[@kylekomicbro1836]

Who the hell is calling this outdated?

[@doompenguin7453]

Literally every big game reviewer.

[@digivagrant]

As someone who plays Doom Eternal, is this something I'll enjoy? And i've been playing TAG just recently Feels like I'll just wait for Shadow Warriors 3 or replay Vanquish

[@opinali]

fellow slayer here... SS4's combat is way less complex/strategic, but it's similarly frenetic and over the top. The AI doesn't even try to be very good so the game just tries to swamp you with a ton of enemies, many of them very fast so you can't just out-race them although you can outmaneuver. I'm finding the game very fun so far, but I don't think it will have much replayability value once I finish the campaign - a good part of what keeps me playing is the general progression / discovery / jokes / new enemies and weapons / etc. which are all trick that only have high impact in the first playthrough. Combat itself is often hard, but the lack of depth makes it repetitive if not for those progression factors. But for the current $20, it's a great deal.

[@doompenguin7453]

@@opinali Are we playing the same game? Serious Sam is much more strategic game than DOOM Eternal on the higher difficulties. When I play DOOM Eternal, I just blast everything with as much dps as possible while in Serious Sam I actually think about my positioning, what combinations of enemies are coming at me and which weapons can best deal with them. Serious Sam puts a much bigger emphasis on efficiency, strategy, using the right combination of tools for the right job and resource management since you can't really resupply with the press of a button in the middle of combat and certain combinations of enemies are an actual nightmare to deal with if you don't have ammo for the weapons that are good countering them. Serious Sam's gameplay is basic at first glance but if you play on the higher difficulties you will realise that there is a lot more to it than you think.

[@opinali]

@@doompenguin7453 I wrote that from limited experience, having played the first half of the campaign (also SS4 is the first of this series I played). I have now finished the campaign so I could appreciate some of what you mention, certainly in levels that needed multiple attempts even though I was playing on Easy because I never got motivated to master the combat. In contrast, I've beat Eternal's campaign and DLCs multiple times up to Nightmare, in part because I put the effort. My final verdict on SS4 is a diamond-in-the-rough game. I can see what Croteam tried to do, and I love a lot of it, for one thing the final boss battle is some of the most epic moments in all videogames (IMO, much better than the Icon of Sin fight in Eternal). I also disagree with many critics' judgment of SS4's environments, I find all of them fantastic, especially for the balance of realism/ambience and utility for storytelling vs. combat (IMO a weak point of Eternal compared to DOOM 2016). The env assets are limited, the team punched way above their weight, but the result is very positive IMO. If you've been to Rome and Pompeii, those levels are particularly awesome. But back to SS4 combat, it does indeed require strategy, but I still fell this is not well balanced because the game relies a lot on brute-force to overpower the player: every major encounter has thousands of enemies, most of them faster than the player so the combat inevitably degenerates into a few critical tricks, in particular you have to get familiar with the terrain so you can spend a lot of the time running backwards and in circles without getting stuck in some corner or dead-end. The shooting-backwards gets ridiculous very fast for me. Also the game doesn't lock you to arenas so you can often "break" the encounter by baiting the monsters then running to some extreme position, perhaps behind the entrance gate to the castle or similar gateways and just waiting monsters to squeeze through that narrow funnel and mow them down effortlessly. In some places the game tries locking but you can cheat, e.g. in the Tunguska fight you can take a hit from a running bull that makes you jump over a rocky step that should be one-way. Still I appreciate the very realistic ambience of these open fights. SS4 makes a big tradeoff in the AIs. Its individual AIs are worthless, they mostly just run after you mindlessly or they have very simple, predictable maneuvering. The flipside is that the combination and staging of monster waves is very well designed, like you mention, so the fight gets interesting when you have to simultaneously deal with enemies that require different tactics. And the games optimizes everything for scale; I never saw a game that could handle this many enemies and gunfight/projectiles on screen, it's truly amazing (btw if you never played this on a ultrawide monitor, you should). DOOM Eternal which is highly regarded as a super-optimized game would grind to a halt with 5% as many entities in the arena. When you get to mow down thousands of enemies in a minute with a laser or machine gun, that can be amazing. But this scale requires individual entities to be very simple, also it compromises weapon behavior in a way that would be broken in most games (the precision/low-spread and range of weapons like minigun and shotgun are ridiculous, they can target enemies miles away). So these compromises are complicated, and it's possible that the reviews I saw (a big majority are negative on the combat) are mostly not understanding the choices the game makes in order to offer an unique experience, which is not for all tastes, mine included despite the fact that I can now understand the game better.

[@kamisori13]

Penguin: Dual wield experience that you can't get in any other game. Random guy: My name is William J. Blazkowicz. Ranger. Army. USA. I'm sorry, my Polish isn't very good. Are you fit to drive?

[@doompenguin7453]

You can't dual wield miniguns or pirate shit cannons in Wolfenstein.

[@drparotta]

Well said 👍

[@SPMAly]

Kenny did lose his shoe

[@humvee2901]

I really been wanting to get this game for so long! quick question if you know, do you think ill be fine if i play this with 8gb of ram and not 16gb? (I have more than the recommended specs for it except the ram)

[@doompenguin7453]

If you keep everything at low, I think you might be good with 8GB. My system uses 8-9GB of ram while playing it with most things maxed out but I'm on Linux so my PC uses significantly less RAM at idle than Windows( 400MB vs Windows' 1.4GB). I think you might be good on the lowest settings but I can't say for sure because I've only played it on machines with 16GB and 32GB.

[@PinkFloydrulez]

i also have 8gb and it was... playable. not great but i had a blast with the game

[@NeoWorm]

I agree on skill trees. Horrible thing, DooM Eternal had it even worse because it didn't even add anything too interesting, just few quality of life things that should be always active. I disagree on reloading. It's just thing to differentiate weapons and adds a small thing to be vary of that can add to battle intensity.

[@Dreadnoughty]

I can live with the bad shadows and meh Textures but i cant live with the dogshit draw distance and level of detail. This makes the game really ugly for me. Great review btw :) Did you watch Frame Raters videos of SS4?

[@darklysm8345]

Skill tree is good

[@DiggitySlice]

Imagine saying 3 is bad but liking 4

[@LewdSCP1471A]

This game wasnt underrated in 2020, it was a broken mess on launch.

[@dsweet5273]

Meh. I have to agree that the combat felt really outdated. In a sea of FPS games there are many more I'd rather play. Glad some people are enjoying SS though.

[@rtxmeatlug3149]

How much would you honestly rate it out of 10?

[@doompenguin7453]

8/10. Serious Sam The Second Encounter is 10/10 and DOOM Eternal is a 9/10 for reference.

[@rtxmeatlug3149]

@@doompenguin7453 Ah, cool. With this reply, you actually gave an answer to what was going to be my next question as well. I was just about to ask, "How does it compare to DOOM : Eternal for you?". L.O.L., thanks.

[@fuzzy8889]

*flashbacks of gmanlives review*

[@googlefish80]

I dont understand the emphasis on realistic enviornments. Its a game where you unrealistically suck ammo into your person and unrealistically kill armies of enemies. Just make the game fun.

[@doomslayer9513]

I am playing it on PS5 right now and it's fucking awesome! Only have few frame drops here and there but it's solid and looks great to my eyes! The guns sound meaty and sooo fun to play with! And the loading screens are not that bad, just around 30 seconds that's it.