Posted on: January 25, 2022

MischiefMaker
Verified ownerGames: 819 Reviews: 66
Serious Sam 4: The Second Encounter
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is a standalone expansion to Serious Sam 4 developed by a group of modders-turned-pro with the help of Croteam. While shorter and cheaper, the level design by this team of enthusiasts is head and shoulders better than the frequently empty and barren level design of SS4. The central hook of Serious Sam is managing hordes of hundreds of enemies with basic AI like a first-person Robotron 2084. Circle-strafing and bunching up groups of enemies to provide the maximum splatter with a well-timed grenade toss is the name of the game. Like Serious Sam: Second Encounter, this game starts at a difficulty level aimed at someone who just finished SS4; do not expect any hand-holding. Long-running fans of the series will recognize variations of several famous rooms from previous games in the series. I just found myself in the famous pillar room from First Encounter, albeit with a Russian oil rig aesthetic. This really feels like a love-letter to the series. Also the Russian winter setting prevents the problem in SS4 of certain enemies and powerups blending into the bright and colorful bloomy backgrounds. I can't give much info on the technical side of things because I am one of the lucky few whose hardware let me run SS4 at playable framerates. Apparently it's a CPU hog, though I have heard that disabling depth of field and enabling prebaked lighting does wonders. I have never encountered a CTD bug never fixed in SS4, fingers crossed, so I'm going to say it's probably more stable than the original game. Imagine Serious Sam 4, but with most of the half-baked ideas cut out and just the excellent horde-shooting with some of the best enemy and weapon balance in the series. Then improve the level design tenfold. That's Siberian Mayhem. Highly recommended!
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