Looks...Serious.

A positive review for a change. Everybody seems to be screaming doom and gloom, but this review really captures many of the points I like about the game:

https://www.pcgamesn.com/serious-sam-4/review?amp

Does not contain major spoilers, only mentions some locations you visit.

I know, bought them YEARS ago. I have waited years for more titles to arrive, will continue waiting for the missing ones.

This. Seriously. (no pun intended)

So it seems to be pretty bad from most reviews. Sad really, it seems Croteam will never make a better SS game than the original/second encounter.

I don't see why not; if there's any stuttering, defrag your disk and you should be OK.

Well. First off there are technical issues no doubts about that, but what game release nowadays does not have. I have not had any crashes as yet, thought seen a few odd AI issues. Then there are some strange decisions made, for instance in terms of size and requiremenets you would have thought that billboard trees would be solid near the player (and NPCs), but they are not. The whole story + NPCs is awfull no getting away from that and is not in the SS spirit, but it is standard practice now also to need to inlcude a wide variety in games.

Those bits aside the combat is fast, heck you have to run from some enemies as they are quick! The good old strafe run backwards shooting, snipe with pistol from miles away, and run away shouting sh*t sh*t sh*t is all there. Its certainly faster paced and more enemies than 3.

Now one thing I notice on steam reviews a lot is people saying the last real SS was 2, personally I did not like 2 that much, from the rubbish pewpew alien guns (aka Halo), to the over the top cartoonyness of it (I mean there were clowns in it). So I would really treat any reviews which compare this to that with a pinch of salt, both games were ok.

End of the day, there is a refund system if you don't like it, or just wait till the bug fixed BFE edition comes out.

Me, I am going back in for one more level.

Yeah, and the HD versions of First and Second could come to GOG too :)
I would buy these in a heartbeat!

This. Either SS 2 or the originals. SS 2 was nothing short of an unsuccessful abortion and I bet 90% of people fawning over how first and second encounter were perfection mean the HD remakes and not the original games.

So not a pinch of salt but a mountain. I kept playing till 6 AM yesterday as I just couldn't stop. Will probably finish it today. I assume there is not too many levels left.

Like I said in my review, I have a beefy CPU but a budget GPU, I'm following the settings the autodetect chose for me, and aside from the occasional enemy caught on level geometry (something I saw multiple times when replaying First and Second Encounter last month) I have not encountered any of the awful bugs Gman emphasized. The gameplay is there, the gunplay is great, Gman and Framerater are being incredibly unfair.

I would say, the story, npcs, dialog is the worst part of the game. It’s so stereotypical, dull and boring. Sam lacks his normal humour. This is the real downside of the game and it really is awful in places. The action is great though!

Yeah, It is cringeworthy sometimes and doesn't really fit into the overall atmopshere (which I loved in BFE) but just watch it once and skip in every future playthrough. The worst thing is that the "side quests" offer you rewards you wouldn't otherwise get (weapon mods, gadgets, supplies) so you kinda have to do them even if they are completely idiotic.

But massacring huge crowds of enemies is extremely satisfying. One new thing I noticed that heavily impacts gameplay is the introduction of headshot damage. Not sure how I feel about that, since it seems to really upset the balance, being able to one shot even tough enemies that would otherwise take 4 non-headshot shots etc.

Also, at 1440p, I'm struggling with FPS in some areas, especially when using Sniper zoom. Really need to grab myself a 3080 or maybe even a 3090 it feels like. 1080ti tries its best, but in some cases, it's just not enough.

Doesn't look that great but still surprised Serious Sam still does more satisfying shooting than games like Halo, Gears of War and Quake Champions where the guns are bigger but feel more ineffectual.

Would be fine if the optional missions were at least somewhat situation relevant. But it's about a 50/50 split between being related like destroying a portal Mental's forces use to to teleport in and doing some random shit for some random person like signing your fan his rifle. I was really hopeful for the story after they seemed to take it somewhat seriously in Serious Sam 3, but it is extremely meh... In SS3, they managed to make a story that shed light on what happened immediately prior to the First Encounter and they managed to do so without other (immortal at that) NPCs polluting your gameplay.

The upgrade points also seem easily missable. They are tucked away in little boxes which given how large the maps are, doesn't help. I think I found most of them, but feel like I missed anywhere between 1-3.