Serious Sam 3: BFE

'Serious Sam 3: BFE (2011)' is a first-person shooter that could be considered 'old-school', focused on frenetic gunplay and constant movement over aiming-down-sight and cover systems. It's a sort of precursor to 'Doom (2016)' in a way, although it isn't as good as that title. The game sees you control Sam 'Serious' Stone, a 'manly man' who spews silly one-liners and doesn't really respect women, as he seeks to prevent an alien invasion from destroying the world. It's essentially a distillation of the genre, devoid of excess plot points or mechanics. It's rather fun, even if it isn't exactly deep. Its most notable aspect is the sheer number of monsters it throws your way at once; it's actually impressive how many enemies the game is able to simultaneously render on screen. This naturally causes some hectic and often overwhelming battles, which increase in severity and length as the story evolves. The thing manages to remain playable thanks to its manual save system, which allows you to save the game whenever you like and prevents unnecessary frustration. In the end, this is an entertaining experience that actually makes up for its lack of depth with its mechanical simplicity and straightforwardly fun feel. 7/10

General information:

Serious Sam 3: BFE (Before First Encounter)is an action game and it was developed by Croteam. It was published in 2011 and even though it says "3" in the title, it is actually already a fourth PC installment of the series so far - seriously! It is a very hectic fps-game (first-person shooter) where Sam Stone tries to defend the Earth against a massive alien invasion. BFE takes place, surprise, before the earlier games.

The main idea of the game is to offer ridiculous moments in a form of exaggerated carnage and cheesy one-liners. If you are looking for a nice story or puzzles... Well, keep looking since you won't find them in this game.

Pros:

If you have liked the previous games, then you will seriously love this one, too. BFE is beautiful and the game engine, Serious Engine 3.5, allows nice dynamics. The enemies are various and they are more interesting than before. Also, the game is surprisingly long and one can happily play it again.

The atmosphere is amusing; John J. Dick is still the voice actor of Sam and even the soundtrack is fitting. There are some very ludicrous dialog and cut scenes. However, the biggest pro of this game is, luckily, the shooting. Everything is perfect in it - thanks to Serious Engine 3.5.

Cons:

The plot is corny but I must stress that it's like that on purpose. The series has always been full of bugs and BFE is no exception. Still, the worst fact is that BFE is not as hard as its predecessors. This won't probably be a problem to everyone but the serious fans will cry. The series is widely-known for its sadistic Serious difficulty.

Summary:

A serious package of action! Seriously recommended for anybody who wants to turn their brains off for a while and let the alien scum have it! However, if you want a bigger meaning and an epic story then you should avoid this game like a plague. This kind of humor just isn't for everyone. But if it indeed is for you, then you should also try the DLC (downloadable content) Jewel of The Nile.

In a time when there is a virtual plethora of FPS PC games available One must think hard about their next choice of game. At the time of writing this review there was little the author had not played so in between playing all those favorite oldies came the desperate search for something new. A few weeks ago it was Duke Nukem, great fun but over in a flash. Steam downloaded and ready to rock (not Will Rock) the stage was set. Despite the nVidia 3D advisory that the game was only fair in 3D it was actually very good - no problem there, some mention of objects not properly rendering in 3D but the advice was wrong! This game looks good runs beautifully in 3D although for the first time the nVidia 3D cross-hair worked worse than the in-game cross-hair so choose your favorite cross-hair from the setup menu. Most of the old enemies reappear but graphically much time has been spent bringing this baby up to date. Glorious graphics with nice textures and of course what would a lame Duke or Sam game be without the comedic interspersions such as "it's all fun till someone loses an eye!", No seriously - Sam or Pam or Pete this is a great distraction and all good fun. The premise being that on a future Earth all resources have been used to the point where humankind is on the brink of total annihilation but "they" find an ancient artifact deep below the ground that will save civilization except when the artifact is raised all hell breaks loose (or something like that) but who cares, the point is to have fun blowing things away. Don't expect all your weapons to appear straight away either, the developers give you a bit of time to find that handy Smith and Wesson so in the meantime you will just have to live with the sledge hammer. There are probably more Difficulty options than most games as well, Easy - normal - hard - very hard - extremely hard - almost impossible and finally "just pass the cyanide" Only joking but yes there are a lot of difficulty levels. My advice? stick with normal unless you are 20 years old and need Hyper killing to keep you sane. for us over 50's its normal to kill in normal and be able to progress through the game without reloading your latest save time and again. Definitely worth purchasing so do yourself a favor and buy this game then have a blast. (Just don't poke yourself in the eye!).

Like with all previous Serious Sam games, you should play the full campaign in co-op mode with friends. Only then does it shine. I played split-screen (2 keyboards, 2 mice, 1 PC) with my bro. Compared to previous games, Sam3 may be too serious (Sam1 had the right balance of absurdity and seriousness, Sam2 was not serious enough). There is still the usual witty adolescent humour though (lame in a good way). I respect Croteam for still patching the game 2 years after release. Sadly, Sam3 feels a bit shorter than previous games. The end boss fight was too difficult and it was not always clear what you were supposed to do. Worth playing if you have some Co-op buddies.