To further appreciate a pure game such as Serious Sam, let me tell you about this useless padding bullshit they add in a lot of video games that are trying to be something they are not, you know when video games try to be like cinematic like a movie? Except unlike a movie they don’t take into consideration good direction, good camera angles, good atmosphere, or any of that sort? Basically what if movies but not entertaining?

That’s what it feels like when videogames try to be something they are not. NOW OF COURSE, some videogames do know how to make cinematics work or even make exploring the game feel cool, namely games that allow you to freely experience them without having to limit your sense of movement, movement is REALLY GOOD, movement is one of the first things you feel when you play a videogame, honestly? Movement on it’s own should be judged, movement is good.

Movement is EVERYTHING. It can make or break a mother fucking game. So when you have an FPS game that is slow as hell, limits you to slow processes and is basically physically keeping a hand to your chest só you don’t move and stay put, it basically saying it does not value it’s sense of movement. It just feels like a boring sense of immersion, it does not want you to have fun or enjoy yourself it seems, why? It’s not like you can’t be pretencious without being fun, I’ve seen many games be pretencious yet still accomplish the bare minimum of fun. Like ohhh I feel so entertained right now by being put in a boring scenario. FUCK THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SERIOUS SAM! YOU ARE PUT IN A GAME, YOU FEEL THE GAME, THAT IS IT, IT IS A GAME.

YOU WANT SOME BULLSHIT? THERE’S NONE OF IT HERE, ALL YOU SEE IS A PURE FUCKING GAME, WHAT YOU ARE EXPERIENCING RIGHT NOW IS THE MEDIUM OF GAMING WITHOUT HAVING TO RELY ON ANY OF IT’S DELUDED ASPECTS. Now of course that there any other aspects aesthetic wise that cannot aid to the experience such as cheesy b-movie one liners, but the important thing is IS THAT IT NEVER HOLDS BACK ON THE FACT THAT IT IS FIRST AND FOREMOST A VIDEO GAME, WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU FUCKING GET.

Now of course, taste can be a very subjective thing, and much like I’ve said that I do not like it when videogames try to be something they’re not, it is equally possible someone out there likes videogames when they are not videogames. To which you have to ask yourself, what do you like about videogames, hm? Have you looked into yourself to ask yourself what even do you enjoy about them? Because here’s the deal, I have realized that being into videogames that are videogames has been more beneficial than limiting myself to a few rotten eggs, it is much more pleasurable to genuine get my millage out of a game that has a lot to offer than any other FPS game that is limiting itself.

Now not every FPS Game has to be the same, you can be interested in a wide arrange of types of FPS games, not everything is gonna be the same and have a different style. Serious Sam doesn’t have gun weight or anything it really is just a simple arcade game in the form of an FPS and with alright movement options BUT… It fucking wastes no time to get into what it has to offer. This is like the Robotron of FPS games. It is the GAUNTLET of FPS games, it is like we took all of the good from old school arcade games and evolved them to a 3D perspective with a lot more going on such as more enemy types, more weapons, more means to avoid an enemy in 3d space, aiming, etc etc, you don’t need to worry about reloading or anything of that but just the PURITY of Arcade design condesended into a more modern means of presenting it. Gone are the days of dying in one hit, you have a health bar and armor at least, a staple of the genre.

Like many arcade games don’t have much of a map variety while this has quite a lot of different shapes and sizes for where they place enemies for you to fight. Again, it is the purest genus of videogames but evolved correctly, it trims all of the fat and keeps it extremely in tune to what videogames are, arcade games will sometimes pause for a small joke or two, and só will Serious Sam. It has a few bonuses as well, remember when Arcade games sold strategy guides and what not? Serious Sam comes with that, the only thing except the game is the little trivia of the enemies, which reminds me COMPLETELY of the feel of an Atari user manual for their games.

It’s pacing and tone is something that would fit right in on the most fundamental level of what a videogame is. The movement speed is pretty much akin to a game from the 70s, this is a game that understands what works and has worked for a long time. The momentum, how every approach feels unique but adds to this greater experience, it is like Doom and Gauntlet had a child. Now of course like some arcade games, it can be cheap at times, but those moments aren’t really the worst. Some games you really do have to learn by trial and error if there is a trap door, some games are not afraid to add traps and have you re-do the same experience of a level, there is nothing wrong with that by the way, why have so many games become so afraid of the idea of penalty of any kind. Learning and having to build strategies on how to better approach something is one of the fun aspects of videogames.

Everything has a simple strategy to follow and learn from, and it’s surprising that such an arcadey game at times even manages to find new ways to be interesting about it, it is ok for games to work within their limitations and find new and exciting ways to do the same things you’ve been doing for the whole time.

The only way this game should experienced is without scum saving also, take it level by level or else you are not appreciating it the way it is meant to be played. It is not unfair, it is an arcade video game, this game is fairly easy in comparison to a lot of the arcade games honestly, get back at me when you have played enough of them to even form taste.

The only way they would make this game any better to fit the experience of being an arcadey game is for there to be a time limit honestly, or at least a monster that is immortal and seeks to chase you if you do not leave the area, because when you think about it in Pac-Man you can avoid enemies all of the time, it is an arcade game with an avoidable timer, you can spend as much time, I am just saying Serious Sam is really good but the fact that it is an FPS game also allows it to be a game in which you can just… Stand still, and if this game were to ever be purer it would just have a means of which you are always engaged, ALWAYS.

To the extent of how true Serious Sam is towards the theory of videogames and how they are meant to be, you don’t want a single dull second, you want to be engaged at all times, Serious Sam understands this as it is constantly introducing new aspects and combining them in various ways. Engagement is key, that’s how a lot of Arcade games operate. I could also argue that the A.I of the enemies isn't quite the best but you know, imperfection is an aspect of perfection I guess.

Update: you know what im retracting a star from the review because the last levels are pretty bad.