Just like the player who must decimate waves of enemies without being overwhelmed, the Serious Sam scenario advances backwards. Thus, the story of this fourth episode predates that of the third, which itself already served as a prequel to the first two. In truth, none of this matters, since the point is more or less always the same: the extra-terrestrial entity Tah-Um (better known as Mental) is sending hordes of aliens to invade the earth, and our hero Sam Stone takes care of putting them through the sulfate machine. Note all the same that this time, Sam goes squarely in search of the Holy Grail, like a knight of Camelot. Or rather Kaamelott given his lack of seriousness. This quest has the good taste to make him visit Italy, the south of France (Carcassonne to be precise) and even Siberia for a short time. These sets are a pleasant change from Egypt, which was really starting to be a little too systematic in the series. One of the novelties of the game concerns the presence in certain missions of partners controlled by the AI. There are some familiar faces (Hellfire and Rodriguez already seen in the cutscenes of Serious Sam 3 BFE) but also newcomers, in the forefront of which are Father Mikhail the Russian priest, Carter the conspirator, and Kenny the blue of the band.
One of the successes of the game is called "His place is in a museum", and one could be tempted to make this criticism of Serious Sam, who hardly changes his recipe. But it would be wrong to react like this because, in reality, this improbable mix between fast-FPS and shoot'em up still works just as well.
During the gameplay phases, their usefulness is significant since they actually kill some of the monsters that tumble onto the map. And their dialogues are the occasion for additional strokes of humor, the not so serious Sam no longer being the only one to deliver the valve and the punchline. Obviously, we remain in a deliberately low register of the forehead and caricatural. But it would be as inappropriate to complain about it as to deplore the sexism of Duke Nukem. Just as it would be foolish to blame the screenplay for its levity or its absurdity. It's all part of Serious Sam's DNA, and it's rather the absence of these characteristics that would have been worrying. And we can apply more or less the same reasoning for the gameplay, which remains identical to what the series has always offered: large arenas, enemies in waves and hundreds, and a whole arsenal to overcome them. It doesn't take more to have fun, even if the developers have tried an improvement with their "Legion" system, which allows several thousand (or even tens of thousands?) of fighters to be displayed simultaneously. The game gives us a taste of it in the very first mission, before completely letting go in the last. Between the two, we stay on quantities of classic enemies for a Serious Sam.
SAM USE OU S'AMUSE?
In order to vary the pleasures, the campaign also has in store for us a passage on a motorcycle, a sequence aboard a combine harvester (imagine the bloody cross between a Farming Simulator and a zombie game…) and a few moments at the controls of a gigantic mech. Finally, everything is relative, since facing the final boss, this giant robot finally seems tiny. Here again, the tradition of huge bosses has been respected to the letter. In other words: any Serious Sam fan will find his marks and something to enjoy. The bestiary is also more varied than usual since in addition to the classic screaming suicide bombers and other Gnaars, we are also entitled to vampires, drones, pyromaniac soldiers, giants in medieval armor or species explosive "boomers" (thanks Left 4 Dead). We take ! The arsenal has also been revised upwards, but some of the new weapons end up being quite redundant. On the other hand, some gadgets are particularly interesting, like the black hole that absorbs enemies, the devastating mini-nuke, or the force field that slows down time. Most of the time, these gadgets are obtained by completing the optional objectives, another novelty of this episode. These are simply branches in the levels that lead to optional arenas, but which we would be wrong to ignore.
Other less convincing, even completely dispensable, new features are also in the game. A mini-talent tree basically allows you to choose between two specializations (improved melee or dual weapon handling), and you can unearth a few badly-crafted radios and audiologs in the scenery, since you have to sit still and do nothing for a long time. seconds too long if you want to listen to the broadcast messages. As a result, we zap them happily. But the real faults of Serious Sam 4 (because there are some!) are rather to be found on the technical side. For starters, the graphics aren't quite up to par for a 2020 title. While that aspect is unfortunate, it's still easily forgivable. On the one hand the game is developed by a small team, and on the other hand we hardly have time to look into modeling and textures when we are busy "circle-strafer" in the middle of several hundred 'enemies. It is therefore especially during the cutscenes and the quieter phases that we realize the dated character of the graphics, even if certain landscapes still manage to have their little effect.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
The lack of optimization is already more embarrassing, the game tending to row on average configs if you push the graphic details a little too much. It also imposes on us some impromptu slowdowns (when certain scripts are triggered for example), as well as a small collection of fairly full bugs. Expect to face one or more of these problems: flickering backgrounds, script not starting at the right time, rough sound mixing, poorly synchronized subtitles or even long loading times. Some of its concerns can be alleviated, or even completely avoided, by changing the display mode of the game which, on PC at least, offers us the choice between DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Do not hesitate to change the setting if you encounter too many graphic problems. For our part, it was the DirectX 11 mode that allowed us to switch between the most drops!
