It had been a long, too long time since we heard that "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh" in the distance, and after the very first announcements the silence on the exit of Serious Sam 4 it had become deafening. Silence that once died, was followed by several postponements. Even if from a technical point of view not exactly brilliant, the title of Croteam e Devolver Digital has finally come into our hands, proving that despite the passing years, old Sam Stone has remained of the same stuff. However, more than "how it remained", in this new chapter of the game we will find out how it "was", given that we are faced with a prequel set on Earth in which Sam is still part of the planetary resistance against hegemony alien of MENTAL and its powerful and terrible leader.
European Trip
As already mentioned, Sam is part of an agency made up of decidedly eccentric types, very tamarrissimi and who accompany their adventures with effective phrases (a trademark!), Whether it is for an appearance, for a kill or ... well, for all. We will therefore have to deal not only with our beloved darling, but also with his teammates (which is genuinely linked to the possibility of playing the title in a cooperative, which is pretty damn funny). Our revolution starts from not too far away, that is from sunny Rome, and despite the alien army is decimating the population, we will be proud to discover that the people too have their personal resistance and their personal heroes ... sure, as much as they are able to resist. We will not remain only in the Eternal City, which in their own way the Croteams wanted to pay homage with bossfight also in the Colosseum and in the Vatican, but we will also take a sightseeing tour in Pompeii or, again, in the boundless French countryside (in an area with an almost free flavor roaming that will also see us running around in full Easy Rider style) and Carcassone.
The missions we will face will, as always, be full of beheaded soldiers and suicide bombers ready to blow us up, as well as there is no shortage of "old glories" enemies that have made us swear so much, such as reptiloids, kleer skeletons or arachnoids, but above all there are many horrible new creatures that go to dramatically expand the bestiary (and consequently the ANECA database). Here then come vampires (or rather "Hemophages"), simple armored soldiers, various crap that emerge from the ground like a crab, giants equipped with hammers and so on. The real novelty in the structure of the missions, however, concerns the possibility of dealing with secondary objectives, which we can deal with at our discretion: following the paths that will be indicated to us by the interface, we can therefore choose to make "light and healthy" deviations, which at the cost of fatigue and enemy blood can give us various bonuses, such as new weapons o gadgets. Even the latter are disparate and imaginative, and can be not only very useful to survive (such as the cure or the grenade able to slow down the time of the opponents) but also capable of snatching more than a smile, such as with the hilarious Oloesca for distract the surrounding creatures.
A war machine
Sam Stone is famous for being one of the greatest heroes on earth (of course, we don't want Hellfire ed.), And will be equipped with an arsenal to say the least exaggerated ... but it will not be only the guns to support him in this adventure: hence there are also drivable vehicles, such as the motorcycle from which we can also shoot while we are in motion, a combine harvester to make a nice collection of alien guts, or the much more devastating MECH. Yes, you got it right, in some phases of Serious Sam 4 you will be in command of real robots capable of devastating entire armies, and one of them (no less than the new Papa Mobile!) Will also be your weapon against a boss . Of course, a really interesting novelty, albeit on the level of life management and aiming, it lacks some lightness.
That's enough? Absolutely not. Sam is not only out of his mind, but he is also a crazy person who can breathe the strange alien purple mist: and here is that by finding special objects, we can also enhance his skills through a simple skilltree, and it will be up to us to choose what to focus on (maybe even split our Gatling gun?).
Tones and Frastuoni
Clearly Serious Sam 4 is exactly what we expected: a shooter that can easily switch between first and third person, full of monsters, backwards races and lots of trashy fun (including secrets to discover and hidden traps). This time, however, it is much more marked how Croteam wanted to give importance to storytelling, and not only through the short videos we have been used to, or the very long descriptions of places and monsters in the ANECA database, but also thanks to the presence of many characters (main and secondary) who have been properly characterized. This has made it possible to open a very particular range of facets, also capable of alternating with this fun of gods moments of reflection (would you ever have said that?) and even sadness. Seeing is believing.
On a technical level, unfortunately, the game lives on of joys and sorrows: the locations, however open and in some cases lacking in particular details, still manage to do their job, and despite everything they make themselves appreciated. What is most successful is the eternal rhythm of the battles, frenetic to no end but at the same time ready to ask for a certain tactic to be carried out with the leather still intact. However, during our test, what we were most sorry about was the fact that the game suffers from unjustified crashes in some cases, which we hope will be resolved as soon as possible. If the graphics (despite being in a certain sense dazzling even if not at the levels of AAA productions) is not the focus of this genre of production, the fact that the title suffers abrupt setbacks is a cons that should not be underestimated.
Adrenaline flows freely in Serious Sam 4 also thanks to the colonna sonora, never so charged and capable of fomenting: a clear step forward compared to the past. The rest of the sound sector is all in all good, with a dubbing in English for all the characters that, despite not being perfect in lip sync, is appreciated for the intention and quality of the voices (not only that of our Sam) . Even if the audio is only available in English, we reassure you by saying that all the subtitles of the dialogues, menus and so on have been translated into our language.
