Welcome to my mini review of Serious Sam 4. This game originally released in September 2020 and was developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. It’s available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5.
It’s an absolutely crazy first-person shooter that involves a lot of bullets. For the purpose of this review I played the game via Xbox Game Pass on my Xbox Series X.
This Game Is Insane!
Continue reading to find out more about my thoughts of this game. You can also read our previous reviews when you’re done here.
The Game
Aliens have come to planet earth to f*ck sh*t up again… But our mate Sam isn’t having any of it. Once again, players can take on the role of Sam in Serious Sam 4. This game is similar to the previous games in the fact it’s a first-person shooter with crazy, over the top gunplay.
There are multiple weapons to be found throughout the 15 chapters of the game, all of which add to a somewhat decent arsenal of firepower. You start with a basic pistol that has unlimited ammo. Soon enough you find a pump action shotgun, then a double-barrelled shotgun, assault rifle, you get the idea.
Some weapons also have attachments hidden around the levels, for example the pump action shotgun has a grenade launcher attachment. The game can assist you in finding stuff like this as it has many side missions you can partake in during the main mission of each level. Upon completion of each side mission will see you unlock one of the fifty-four in-game achievements.
There’s also a total of 1,000 gamerscore for you to gain upon unlocking all of the achievements.
As you progress through the game you will unlock skill points which you can spend in the skill tree. Of course, these have different effects such as the ability to dual wield pistols, dual wield bigger guns such as the assault rifle, and more.
The graphics look pretty decent, and the game runs really well in both graphical or performance options. The highlight is the character models, as you can see above. The texture work is a little blurry at times, but you don’t notice that so much when running around with tons of enemies wanting you dead.
The framerates do drop below 60fps when there’s a lot of stuff going on when using the graphical option, but to be fair, there is A LOT going on. Loads of enemies on screen, absolutely tons of bullets flying around, plus blood and gore whilst you’re killing enemies.
The sound effects of the weapons are pretty good too. Voice acting is not amazing, but good enough to continue on through the craziness of the game. The soundtrack stands out, it’s awesome and reminds me of DOOM (2016) in some ways.
Conclusions
Serious Sam 4 doesn’t really push any boundaries. However, it’s great fun just running around mindlessly shooting everything that moves without having to put too much thought into it.
Unfortunately the game is leaving Xbox Game Pass in a few days, so act quick if you want to at least check out a few levels before it leaves.
I found myself very chilled out whilst playing the game. Due to the nature of the game, there is a lot of on-screen flashing, so if you’re sensitive to this (for example epilepsy) I highly recommend you do not play this game.
I score Serious Sam 4 an 8/10.
