Review for Serious Sam Collection. Game for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 03/03/2020 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 17/11/2020 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 17/11/2020 The version for Xbox One came out on 17/11/2020
That a ruler of the universe tries, among millions and millions of stars and planets, to invade the very Earth is a cliché that we have never fully understood. It seems that mankind in a narcissistic endeavor sees itself as the center of the universe and, therefore, the coveted destination of all bad guys looking for trouble. However unlikely this imaginative scenario has been used and abused over generations, both in the literary and media fields in general.
Naturally the videogame panorama does not exempt itself from this trend and from 2001 to today Croteam and Devolver Digital have done their utmost by creating and producing the Serious Sam series which now sees the Serious Sam Collection land on PlayStation 4, Google Stadia, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Mental, the semi-omnipotent villain on duty, has decided to invade our planet. Only the irreverent and decidedly badass Sam "Serious" Stone can free us from the alien invasion. Unfortunately Sam will have his work cut out because we are talking about an invasion of hundreds and hundreds of unlikely as well as lethal alien monsters, all ready to take out our hero, who for his part will certainly not remain idle.
The Serious Sam Collection sees us protagonists of various chapters and DLCs that are essentially all the same. There is talk of a mere pretext to take out, in an infinite splatter, everything that appears on the screen, enemy after enemy, in an incessant macabre dance. The Serious Sam Collection includes:
- Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter;
- Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter;
- Serious Sam 3: BFE.
and the two expansions:
- The Legend of the Beast;
- Jewel of the Nile.
Plot not even talking about it, while even cut-scenes and artwork are reduced to a minimum. The only information that explains the events a little and provides the player with hints and an account of the enemies killed and encountered is provided by a telematic database that can be consulted at any time. The screenshots of history and explanations are exhaustive but still totally ignorable given that Serious Sam is so basic in its gameplay that it has become a cult among First Person Shooters.
Put simply and without going around it further you will have to mow, pulp, disintegrate and blow up anything that moves on the screen. The enemies will be excessive to say the least and will not leave you the slightest breath, arriving in waves that at times will seem endless and that will not leave you time to think. Moving, aiming, shooting - it all comes down to this, but you'll have to do it really fast.
Two words on the hundreds of quotes: music, videos, enemies and locations draw on all the sci-fi imagery of the 80s, 90s and 2000s: in Serious Sam Collection you will constantly have that feeling of déjà vu that goes from the gameplay that obsessively recalls Doom and which culminates in cut scenes that see us picking up a crystal skull after escaping a rolling stone with a hint of Indiana Jones in the background.
In this simplistic context, however, it must be said that the gameplay itself works great. The commands respond in an excellent way, probably thanks to a dated graphics but which still does its job in a functional way. The keys are functionally mapped, and the hundreds of weapons combined with the stripped down loaders make the Serious Sam Collection a pleasant product to play even today.
The multiplayer experience is also priceless. If we want this is one of the modes that gives the most satisfaction: taking out waves of enemies in profusion in the company of your online friends with an irreverent, splatter and adrenaline-filled context like the one offered by Serious Sam Collection is nothing short of the icing on the cake of the experience. The matchmacking is fast and the connection is stable, without too much effort even if you have a limited bandwidth, so don't miss this opportunity.
Porting to Nintendo Switch, the console we used for this review, then performed really well. You will have the possibility to choose between two modes: once to optimize the graphics and once to give a gaming experience with a greater number of FPS and therefore more fluid. Personally we advise you, at least on the Nintendo hybrid, to opt for this second choice: in such an adrenaline-pumping Serious Sam Collection we find it better to enhance greater stability at the expense of a graphic detail that will always remain dated.
Are there any sore points in this Serious Sam Collection? Perhaps we might find some game sessions frustrating that, due to the level structure or the amount of enemies, become the scene of more and more attempts in order to be overcome. You can also complain about some drop in frame rates in the most hectic situations and with too many enemies on the screen, but in general we can say that the final game experience is really good, always taking into account the context in which the Serious saga Sam was developed. There is talk of a fast and dynamic unstructured gameplay and an end to just killing the enemies. Keep this in mind and you'll have a blast.
Serious Sam Collection is a repackaged high-level product that immediately conquers for its speed and its level of adrenaline. Hundreds of enemy hordes with a multitude of on-screen opponents will keep you busy for hours trying to take home the skin. Devolver Digital and Croteam bring to consoles a collection capable of thrilling, albeit with raw simplicity, lovers of the genre who will go crazy in retracing the path of Sam “Serious” Stone. Net of some sporadic drop in FPS and graphics that are starting to feel the weight of the years, the Serious Sam Collection remains a recommended purchase.
► Serious Sam Collection is a Shooter type game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 03/03/2020 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 17/11/2020 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 17/11/2020 The version for Xbox One came out on 17/11/2020
